Your best bet would to try to buy the products directly from the
company through their refurbished products supply chain. According to
an article in the July issue of the Harvard Business Review, there is
a trend to turn the 100 billion dollars of goods that US consumers
return to the nation’s retailers per year into an opportunity “to
build a competitive advantage.” The “remanufacturing, refurbishing,
recycling, reuse, or disposal of goods” is referred to as reverse
logistics, an opportunity to profit off the return. The manufacturers
of the products are the ones responsible for this, not the retailer.
Sears simply sends the products back to the them.
Some companies use eBay.com and FastAsset.com to generate high
recovery rates for returned goods, although usually in small
quantities. I realize that you specifically requested direct access,
but this may be as close as you can get. The company is the one who
actually lists their products, but it is through a third party. As
far as overstocked, surplus goods go, things don‘t look too promising.
Stores are following the path of Wal-Mart with tighter controls over
inventory, and in many cases an absence of true inventory because the
companies selling the goods in their store own them, not the store
itself. The burden to sell these overstocked goods falls on the
distributor of manufacturer, not the store. They too have tight
controls over their production, with highly accurate demand projection
capabilities.
I hoped this helped. If you would like to access the article go to:
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml;jsessionid=4PHMWXQHDUD14CTEQENR5VQKMSARUIPS?id=F0207A
It costs six dollars.
This should convince Google that they not only want someone like me to
be a researcher, but that they absolutely need me on their team.
Best regards,
Drew |
