Overstock is defined as “a supply or quantity in excess of demand or requirements.” Coming out of a pandemic where companies had no choice but to delay or change their inventory production are now attempting to catch up facing the huge issue of overstock. We had an enormous back up at the ports causing products that were on the water before and during the pandemic leaving products not getting delivered in a timely manner and as these shipments are now being unloaded many of the products have missed the timing of when they should’ve been at store level i.e. holiday goods that missed holiday sales or seasonal products like summer items or summer furniture that missed the summer selling season.
Target decided that they would sell off these products by pushing out tens of thousands of manifested overstock loads into the salvage and closeout market causing a huge amount of mixed truck loads hitting the market all at once. These loads required a lot of work to sort out and additional labor costs to get them out to closeout retailers causing a slow down in moving other closeout products as well. The supply of Target overstocks hitting the market right now is much larger than the overall demand at the retail level causing products to back up in warehouses and slowing down regular closeout opportunities for other companies. Sales of other categories like Toys, Housewares, and General merchandise for us have slowed down because of these Target closeouts. However, once the Target loads are moved through the salvage and closeout market it will open up for other opportunities and distribution channels again.