Revealed: The secret warehouses selling excess stock from Costco and Target for up to 98% off READ MORE: Deep discount supermarket chain offers luxury products By James Cirrone For Dailymail.Com Published: 14:51 EDT, 9 September 2024 | Updated: 15:02 EDT, 9 September 2024 e-mail View comments Unassuming little warehouses outside the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco have some of the best discounts you can ever hope to find on excess products that went unsold at major retailers like Costco and Target. These businesses, often called salvage stores, resell overstock, discontinued and returned items at a massively reduced price.
They often buy retailers' surplus at a discount themselves, which is how they're able to pass on many of their hard-to-believe deals onto small town communities in California . Twice as Nice, which has a strong presence in the Bay Area, stocks its shelves with name brand items such as home appliances, back-to-school supplies and more for 50 percent cheaper, SFGate reported. Costless, an outlet primarily in the Anaheim area, is able to sell popular Costco Kirkland brand products for as much as 98 percent off .
Costco and Target have emerged as the most popular stores for resale businesses to scour for good products to flip Pictured: The inside of a Costless outlet store, which is able to sell popular Costco Kirkland brand products for as much as 98 percent off Read More Bay Area discount store sells returned Amazon packages- with some bargain gems hidden among the unwanted junk There's also Jona's Outlet, which operates on the outskirts of Los Angeles and almost exclusively resells Target merchandise. There, you can pick up shoes and bras that were once in a Target for just $3. It has a 2 for $5 deal on bras as of August 26.
Dave's Wholesale in Chula Vista, a sizable city in San Diego County, sells Costco's brand of boucle chairs for nearly $100 cheaper. It also carries Costco leather recliners for almost $200 off. One of the biggest players slinging overstock products is GTM Discount General Stores - which stands for 'Get the Money.
' Its Southern California warehouses carry about 20,000 items and have more than 200 suppliers, receiving numerous deliveries five days a week. The result is, they can sell name brand clothing, furniture and electronics from big for up to 70 percent off, according to the company website. Twice as Nice owner and operator Sadana Traxler gave SFGate an inside look into how these businesses end up turning a profit.
A Jona's Outlet in Southern California. The business almost exclusive resells Target products A rack of backpacks, totes and duffle bags at Twice as Nice, which has a strong presence in the Bay Area Jona's Outlet announced this sale on Instagram on August 26 Traxler and her husband Josh currently run the Twice as Nice outlet in downtown San Bruno, which is about 12 miles from the heart of San Francisco. The pair will usually bid on Costco surplus online, often buying as many as five or six pallets of goods.
Anyone can do this on Costco's liquidation marketplace - as long as you go through the process to become an approved buyer. This involves filling out your state's sales tax exemption certificate. Though Twice as Nice resells these to the surrounding community for cheap, the merchandise isn’t defective, Traxler said.
The reason why the items are let go to begin with is because their packages are dented or ripped and can’t be put back on the shelves. In fact, Costco has an inventory condition scale, ranging from brand new to Grade C/D, which means the products are heavily scratched or dented. Overall, the business model is to scour retailers' liquidation sites and 'find a good deal and pass it on' to her customers, Traxler said.
The first GTM store opened way back in 1981 in downtown San Diego, and now the retailer employs over 100 people at multiple locations Pictured: The Twice as Nice location Sadana and Josh Traxler run This idea is not at all new. Traxler’s father-in-law, now 83, opened the first location in Half Moon Bay. The first GTM store opened way back in 1981 in downtown San Diego.
Besides getting products to people who need them for cheaper, this practice of reselling the leftovers of corporate mega-production also ameliorates a major environmental problem. Over $800 billion worth of merchandise is returned annually, according to a 2024 paper by A. Shaji George, an information and communication technology expert who has also studied trends in e-commerce.
All of the boxes stuff consumers send back to Amazon, Walmart and other major retailers have to go somewhere, and if no else buys these unwanted products, they'll end up in landfills. About 9.5 million pounds of returns end up in American dumps every year.
Transporting returned items alone generates over 15 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually. Michael Toohey, the manager of ReMart, an 'eco-store' based in Anaheim, is keenly aware that he can help lessen the impact returned goods have on the environment. 'If we can take that toaster and literally refurbish it, clean it up, and make it work, then we feel like we’re doing our part,' he said.
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