The State of Liquidation Recovery Rates
Everyone selling pallets quotes retail value. Almost nobody publishes what buyers actually recover. This report puts numbers on it: for 10 categories, the share of stated retail a reseller collects at market prices, how long the lot takes to clear, and how many units arrive dead. Free to cite, free to republish with a link.
Recovery by category
Bars show the low-to-high band; the marker is the median. Percentages are gross resale proceeds as a share of the manifest's stated retail, before the cost stack below.
Full dataset
| Category | Recovery | Weeks to clear | Defect rate | Primary channel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Small kitchen appliances Blenders and air fryers move fast; missing blades and baskets are the margin killer. | 31% | 6 | 18% | eBay / Facebook local |
Consumer electronics (non-Apple) Test-before-list is mandatory. Untested lots price 8-12 points lower. | 27% | 5 | 24% | eBay |
Apple / premium tech Highest recovery in the dataset, and the most competitive bidding on the buy side. | 46% | 3 | 15% | eBay / Swappa |
Apparel & footwear Size curve decides everything. Mixed-size pallets recover near the low end. | 21% | 12 | 9% | Whatnot / Poshmark / bulk |
Toys & games Seasonality is worth 10+ points: Q4 recovery far outruns Q1. | 29% | 8 | 12% | Facebook / Amazon FBA |
Tools & hardware Brand-name power tools are the most reliable recovery band for new buyers. | 37% | 5 | 11% | eBay / local pickup |
Home & furniture Freight and damage eat the spread. Recovery looks good until you ship it. | 19% | 10 | 21% | Facebook local |
Health & beauty Expiration dating and gating restrict who can actually list the good stuff. | 26% | 7 | 14% | Amazon / eBay lots |
Sporting goods & outdoors Bulky items recover well locally, poorly once you pay to ship them. | 28% | 9 | 13% | eBay / local |
General merchandise (mixed) The widest variance in the dataset. Bid on the manifest, never on the photo. | 22% | 11 | 22% | Mixed / lot resale |
Condition multipliers
Apply these to the category median before you bid. An untested customer-return lot of small appliances is not a 31% pallet, it is closer to 20%.
The cost stack
Recovery is gross. These five lines stand between recovery and profit, and they are the reason a 30% recovery pallet can still lose money.
Methodology
The figures above are the category baselines the Pallet IQ pricing engine uses when it grades a manifest. Each band is built from public sold-comparable ranges on the dominant resale channel for that category, adjusted for the condition multipliers listed above and for the defect rates typical of customer-return inventory.
They are modeled benchmarks, not a survey of individual buyer results, and they describe a typical lot rather than any specific auction. Bands are intentionally wide because condition, size curve, season, and channel move recovery more than category does. When we publish aggregate figures drawn from the analysis network, they are bucketed and only released once a bucket holds at least five distinct analyses, see market reports and our AI methodology.
To apply this to a real lot, run the numbers in the maximum bid calculator or drop a manifest into the manifest analyzer.
Cite or embed this report
Reproduce any table with attribution. Journalists, YouTubers, and course creators are welcome to use the figures, a link back to this page is all we ask.
Pallet IQ AI. "State of Liquidation Recovery Rates (2026 Edition)." https://palletiqai.com/reports/recovery-rates (accessed 2026-08-01).
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Questions we get about this data
What is a recovery rate on a liquidation pallet?
Recovery rate is the share of a manifest's stated retail value that a reseller actually collects after listing the goods at market prices. A pallet with $5,000 stated retail that returns $1,400 in gross sales has a 28% recovery rate.
What is a good recovery rate?
Across the 10 categories in this dataset the median modeled recovery is 28.6% of stated retail. Premium tech clears the high end near 46%, while mixed apparel and furniture sit closer to 19%.
Do these numbers include fees and freight?
No. Recovery is measured on gross resale proceeds before the cost stack. Subtract buyer premium, freight, channel fees, outbound shipping, and sort labor to reach net profit, the cost-stack table on this page lists typical ranges for each line.
Can I cite or republish this data?
Yes. The tables are free to reproduce in articles, videos, and courses with attribution and a link back to this page. There is also an embeddable maximum-bid calculator you can drop into your own site.
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