Buying guides
Buying a liquidation truckload: the 8 things our buyer checks
Sep
Before buying a liquidation truckload, check eight things: the manifest, the condition mix, the price against what the load can realistically resell for, the freight, the pallet count and weight, the refund terms, any brand restrictions where you sell, and whether the sum still works after the bad pieces. That’s the list Andrew, our buyer, runs on every load he buys for us. Our 16 truckloads on September 30, 2026 carried 20 to 48 pallets or gaylords each and weighed 7,200 to 21,600 lbs.
Below is each check, what to look for, and how our own listings answer it, including where they fall short.
1. Is there a manifest, and what’s on it?
A manifest is the line-by-line list of the load: product, brand, quantity, condition, and usually the original retail price. Andrew reads it first because it’s the only way to price a load before it arrives. Treat the original retail price as what the store once charged, not what the item will resell for.
Our truckloads fail this check. All 16 are unmanifested, meaning each listing gives the source, the pallet count, the condition mix and the weight, but no item list, and they’re priced lower for that. If you won’t buy a truckload without a manifest, you’ll need a seller that publishes them; our comparison of liquidation websites shows which ones do. The liquidation manifest guide explains what a missing list changes.
2. What condition is the merchandise?
The grades that matter are new, open box, customer returns, used, damaged and salvage, and a truckload is almost always a mix. Find the share of each if the seller gives one, and be wary of a load described only as “general merchandise”.
Our truckload listings state the mix in plain words. The Amazon general merchandise loads, for example, say customer returns, shelf pulls and overstock, with damaged packaging, open-box, incomplete, defective and salvage items. They don’t give a percentage of each, because nobody has counted an unmanifested load. What shelf pulls are covers how those grades differ.
3. Does the price leave room after every cost?
Andrew compares the truckload price with what the goods can realistically sell for, and the resale has to cover more than the lot price. Take our $10,950 Amazon Clothing Truckload, 24 gaylords, delivered to Ohio at the $2,500 truckload rate for that region: $13,450 landed, or $560.42 a gaylord. The resale then has to cover that, plus storage, plus the pieces you can’t sell, before anything is left for you.
We can’t give you the resale side of that sum. It depends on what you sell, where, and how fast. What we can give you is every cost we control, shown before you pay.
4. Where does it ship from, and what does freight cost?
Check the origin, the freight price, whether delivery is offered at all, whether it moves as a full truckload or shared LTL freight, and whether you need a freight quote before you can pay. A load that’s cheap in California and delivered to Georgia is not cheap.
Ours ship FOB Dalton, GA as full truckloads, and single pallets go by LTL freight. You don’t need a quote first: the truckload rate shows at checkout by region, $1,000 to the Southeast, $2,500 to the East and Midwest, $3,500 to Central and Mountain states and $5,500 to the West Coast and Southwest. Alaska and Hawaii are quoted after the order. Free dock pickup is available by appointment. The pallet shipping cost guide has the full rate table.
5. How many pallets are in the truckload, and how heavy?
Truckloads are sold by count, so the count, the pallet type and the weight tell you what you’re getting and whether your dock and floor can take it. A gaylord is a large corrugated box on a pallet, filled loose; a standard pallet is stacked goods, usually shrink-wrapped. Gaylords of clothing weigh less than pallets of hard goods, which is why the weights below vary so much.
| Truckload | Count | Weight on the listing | Price | Per pallet or gaylord |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon GM Truckload | About 24 gaylords | About 450 lbs each; 10,800 lbs | $6,500 | $270.83 |
| Target Mixed Merchandise Truckload | 22 to 24 tall pallets | About 500 lbs each; 11,000 to 12,000 lbs | $7,000 | $291.67 to $318.18 |
| Home Depot Turbo Truckload | 20 to 24 pallets | About 700 lbs each; 14,000 to 16,800 lbs | $8,200 | $341.67 to $410 |
| Amazon Clothing Truckload | 24 gaylords | About 300 lbs each; 7,200 lbs | $10,950 | $456.25 |
| Amazon GM Truckload, 48 | 48 gaylords | About 450 lbs each; 21,600 lbs | $12,500 | $260.42 |
| Target General Merchandise Truckload | 24 raw pallets, 5 to 7 ft tall | About 650 lbs each; 15,600 lbs | $12,950 | $539.58 |
| Amazon Raw General Merchandise Truckload | 24 raw pallets, 6 to 7 ft tall | About 700 lbs each; 16,800 lbs | $19,950 | $831.25 |
Buyers also ask whether a load comes on a standard 53-foot trailer. Our listings give the count, height and weight of each pallet rather than the trailer, so if your receiving dock needs the trailer length, call us before you book it.
6. What happens if the load isn’t what was advertised?
Read the refund policy for four cases before you pay: the load doesn’t match the manifest, a large share arrives damaged, products are missing, or the load is substantially different from the listing. Here’s how ours handles them.
- Damage: if 30 percent or more of a pallet arrives damaged, we refund the damaged share. Note it on the driver’s receipt and email photos within 48 hours, including the pallets as they arrived, before unwrapping.
- Items that don’t work: on customer returns, and on mixed loads with no manifest, those don’t count as damage, because the listing already said they’re sold untested.
- Manifest mismatch: on manifested lots, counts can differ by up to 5 percent. Our truckloads have no manifest to mismatch, so a few missing pieces can’t be proven against a list, which is the main risk of buying unmanifested. A load that’s plainly not what you ordered falls under the next point.
- A different load: if what arrives isn’t what you ordered, you can return it within 7 days, opened or not. Send photos with your order number and we pay the return freight; a 10 percent restocking fee comes off the refund. If we find before shipping that stock doesn’t match a listing, we cancel and refund in full, and you can also cancel an order yourself after paying.
- Change of mind: unopened orders can come back within 7 days, with return freight and a 10 percent restocking fee paid by you.
The full wording is in our refund and returns policy.
7. Can you actually sell these brands where you sell?
Some marketplaces need approval before you can list certain brands, so a load full of one brand can be hard to move online even when the goods are fine. Check the brands in a load against the rules of every platform you sell on before you buy it. With no manifest, the listing’s source and category are your best guide, so ask us what a load usually carries if a brand matters to you.
8. Does the whole sum still work?
This is the question the other seven feed. Andrew’s rule is to run it with the bad pieces taken out, not with every item selling. If a load only works when nothing is damaged, nothing is missing and every piece sells at your best price, pass on it. If it still works with part of the load written off, it’s worth a closer look.
For a first buy, a single pallet from the same source is a cheaper way to learn what a load actually holds. Our truckloads run from $6,500, Amazon return pallets and Target pallets come by the pallet, and the pallet flipping guide shows the cost-per-item sum on single lots. Questions about a specific load go to Andrew and the team at (573) 309-3326, call or text, or [email protected].
