Forthclear: State of Excess Inventory 2026
Source-linked figures on surplus marketplaces, buyer activity and estimated US returns. This page separates company-reported results and survey estimates from Forthcast's dated model-classification snapshot, and explains why some widely quoted market totals are not used.
Published 2026-05-13 · Last updated 2026-10-11 · Free to cite with a link back to this page · Press: info@forthcast.io
FY2025 GMV reported by Liquidity Services, a public surplus-marketplace operator — up 15% year over year
Source: SEC 8-K filing, Nov 20256.0M registered buyer accounts at Liquidity Services, up 10% year over year; 4.1M bidder/auction participations in FY2025, not distinct buyers
Source: SEC 8-K filing, Nov 2025US merchandise returns projected for 2025 — 15.8% of total retail sales, and 19.3% of online sales
Source: NRF / Happy Returns, Oct 2025Executive summary
Liquidity Services reported 15% GMV growth to $1.57 billion for fiscal 2025 and 10% growth in registered buyer accounts to 6.0 million. About 58% of its GMV was government surplus. NRF estimated US returns at $890 billion for 2024 (16.9% of retail sales) and $849.9 billion for 2025 (15.8% overall; 19.3% online). B-Stock separately quotes a $170 billion post-holiday returns estimate. These company results and returns estimates do not establish the size of the commercial liquidation market; the cited $100 billion founder estimate is not used as a measured market total here.
Market size & growth — what the SEC filings show
GMV $1.57 billion, up 15% YoY
Liquidity Services (NASDAQ: LQDT), parent of Liquidation.com, reported 15% gross merchandise volume growth in fiscal 2025 (ended Sep 30, 2025). Revenue grew 31% to $476.7M; GAAP net income grew 41% to $28.1M. These are one operator's results, not the size or growth of the entire commercial liquidation market.
Source: SEC 8-K, Nov 20 2025~58% of that GMV is government surplus
LQDT's GovDeals segment (government/public-sector surplus) contributed roughly $903.5M of FY2025 GMV — so the commercial retail-surplus slice of the public-comp market is meaningfully smaller than headline GMV suggests. A sizing caveat worth carrying when citing the $1.57B figure.
Source: SEC 8-K, Nov 20 2025$15B+ cumulative completed transactions; 15,000 reported sellers
Liquidity Services reports more than $15 billion in completed transactions to more than five million qualified buyers and 15,000 corporate and government sellers worldwide since inception.
Source: SEC 8-K, Nov 20 2025The upstream supply — returns feed the surplus pipeline
$849.9B returned in 2025 (projected) — 15.8% of retail sales
NRF and Happy Returns projected $849.9 billion of US merchandise returns in 2025, or 15.8% of retail sales. Their 2024 release projected $890 billion at 16.9%. These retailer-survey estimates are not measurements of liquidation sales.
Source: NRF / Happy Returns19.3% projected online return rate for 2025
For 2025, NRF and Happy Returns estimated a 19.3% online return rate against 15.8% across retail channels. The two percentages describe different sales denominators; they do not measure what share of returns is liquidated.
Source: NRF / Happy Returns~$170B post-holiday returns estimate
B-Stock quotes a roughly $170 billion post-holiday returns estimate in a post discussing 2024 NRF returns figures. This is an attributed estimate, not a measured recurring Q1 liquidation-market total.
Source: B-Stock holiday-returns estimateNumbers we checked and do not recommend citing
These figures circulate widely in liquidation-industry coverage but failed verification against their underlying sources:
“About $100 billion of excess inventory moves through the United States annually”
Not used as a measured market total here. The cited Ghost founder interview supplies an estimate; this report does not establish an independently verified market-sizing method for it.
Original source“US merchandise returns are declining year over year”
A sustained decline is not established here. NRF/Appriss reported 14.5%/$743B for 2023; NRF/Happy Returns projected 16.9%/$890B for 2024 and 15.8%/$849.9B for 2025, and described the 2025 rate as in line with 2024. This sequence of reported figures and estimates does not on its own establish a persistent decline.
Original source NRF / Appriss 2023 NRF / Happy Returns 2025Measuring overstock with days of cover
A days-of-cover measure connects stock on hand to expected demand. For this proposed measure, a SKU with a valid days-of-cover value above 180 is above the selected threshold. That threshold is a screening rule, not proof that the stock is unsellable or should be liquidated.
For each store at a stated observation time, divide the number of eligible SKUs above 180 days of cover by the number of eligible SKUs with a valid numeric days-of-cover value. Missing or invalid values are unknown, not zero. Both sides must use one consistent record per eligible store and SKU.
Record the capture time separately from the forecast's projection month. Several future projection months in one extract are not several historical observations. A trend requires comparable captures taken at different times.
The existing no-demand-or-excess classification FAQ on this page describes a different Forthcast measure. It cannot be substituted for the share of SKUs above the days-of-cover threshold. Neither measure establishes cash recovery, future sales or all-Shopify inventory levels.
No cross-store 180-day-cover result is published in this section. Before releasing one, verify the observation date, SKU grain, numeric eligibility, complete cohort exclusions and contributing-store count. A release needs the median and interquartile range of store-level shares, together with leave-one-store-out sensitivity. These checks have not been completed for this measure.
For a product flagged by your own analysis, review demand assumptions, seasonality, margin, storage costs and whether replenishment can be reduced. Clearance or a bulk sale is a separate commercial decision. A high days-of-cover value alone does not establish which option pays more.
Methodology
Market figures use the cited SEC filings and NRF releases, plus an attributed B-Stock estimate. NRF returns figures are estimates for the stated year, not observed liquidation sales. The Forthcast classification FAQ uses the dated snapshot stated in that answer. The days-of-cover method is a separate proposed measure; no cross-store 180-day-cover estimate is published here.
Frequently asked questions
How big is the B2B liquidation market?
Liquidity Services reported $1.57 billion in GMV for fiscal 2025, up 15% year over year, with roughly 58% from government surplus (GovDeals). This is one public operator's GMV, not a total for the US commercial excess-inventory market. The cited $100 billion founder estimate is not established as a measured market total in this report.
How many liquidation buyers are there?
Liquidity Services reported approximately 6.0 million registered buyer accounts at fiscal year-end 2025, up 10%, and 4.1 million bidder/auction participations during the year. A registered buyer is counted once in each auction they bid in, so those participations are not 4.1 million distinct buyers.
How much merchandise is returned in the US each year?
NRF and Happy Returns projected US returns of $890 billion for 2024 (16.9% of retail sales) and $849.9 billion for 2025 (15.8%). Their projected online return rate for 2025 was 19.3%. These are survey-based estimates for the stated years, not observed liquidation sales.
Is the liquidation market growing?
Liquidity Services reported 15% GMV growth and 10% registered-account growth in fiscal 2025. Those are company-level signals. NRF's roughly $850–890 billion annual US returns estimates for 2024–2025 describe the upstream returns pool, not the liquidation market's size or growth.
What share of a store's catalog does Forthcast classify as no-demand or excess?
In the historical Forthcast snapshot, the median was 69.9% across 21 stores active at measurement, excluding test stores, with at least 10 tracked SKUs. This is a Forthcast model classification, not an observed sale or an estimate for all Shopify stores; the middle half of stores ran from 58.8% to 80.5%, as of August 13, 2026.
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