State of Excess Inventory 2026

Finding 1: Apparel dominates surplus volume — but recovers the least

Apparel and footwear account for 31% of all Forthclear surplus listings — the largest single vertical by volume. Yet apparel sellers recover only 22 cents per retail dollar, the second-lowest of any category. The disconnect reflects fashion's hard seasonality: a winter coat listed in February is worth a fraction of one listed in November. Sellers who list within the season recover 31 cents; those who list 90+ days out of season recover 12 cents. Electronics is the inverse story: lower volume (18%), but the highest price recovery (47 cents) because resellers can always resell working electronics regardless of the calendar.

Surplus category breakdown

Source: Forthclear marketplace, 1,240 anonymised transactions, Q3 2024 – Q1 2026. Price recovery = median accepted offer price ÷ seller-reported original retail price. 30-day sell-through = % of listings that complete a sale within 30 days of first listing.

Finding 2: Price recovery by category — a 28-cent spread between best and worst

The gap between the highest-recovering category (consumer electronics at 47¢) and the lowest (food & beverage at 19¢) is 28 cents per retail dollar — a spread that compounds across thousands of units. For a $200,000 retail-value food liquidation, that gap is worth $56,000 in gross recovery. Category-awareness at listing time — not negotiating skill — is the single biggest determinant of price outcome.

Median price recovery (¢ per $1 retail)

Finding 3: The sell-through window — 62% close within 30 days, 8% never close

Across all categories, 62% of Forthclear listings close (i.e., a sale completes) within 30 days of first listing. The remaining 38% follow a long tail: 19% close between 31–60 days, 11% between 61–90 days, and 8% remain unsold after 90 days. That unsold 8% typically represents inventory priced above market or listed outside buyer demand windows. Repricing to 10–15% below median market within 45 days converts the majority of this tail.

Cumulative sell-through by listing age

Finding 4: The post-holiday surplus wave is accelerating

The Forthclear panel shows a consistent and intensifying seasonal pattern. January surplus volume reached a seasonal index of 420 in January 2026 — 4.2× the Q3 2024 baseline — up from an index of 218 in January 2025. That is nearly a 2× acceleration in January volume within a single year. The driver is compounding: longer consumer return windows, faster sell-cycle pressure from Q4 markdowns, and increasing DTC brand adoption of B2B liquidation as a first-choice channel rather than a last resort.

Surplus listing volume index (Q3 2024 = 100)

Finding 5: Speed to listing — the single most controllable variable

The data reveals a clear speed premium: sellers who list surplus within 30 days of identifying dead stock achieve a 62% sell-through rate in their first month. Those who wait 31–60 days see that rate fall to 44%. Waiting 61–90 days drops it to 27%. The mechanism is straightforward: buyers on B2B surplus platforms are buying for resale or remanufacture. Fresher stock — closer to original retail freshness — commands higher bids and faster closes.

The operational conclusion: integrate surplus identification into the inventory review cycle — not as a quarterly cleanup task, but as a weekly or bi-weekly trigger. Tools like Forthcast demand forecasting can flag ageing SKUs before they become dead stock, giving Forthclear sellers the timing advantage the data confirms.

Methodology

This report draws on 1,240 anonymised transactions processed through the Forthclear B2B surplus marketplace between Q3 2024 – Q1 2026. All seller and buyer identities are anonymised before aggregation; no individual seller, buyer, SKU, or company name appears in the dataset.

• Category assignment: Sellers self-declare a product category at listing time from a fixed taxonomy of six verticals. Multi-category lots are counted once under the primary declared category.
• Price recovery: Defined as the accepted offer price divided by the seller-declared original retail price (MSRP or last-sale price). Calculated at the lot level; lots without a declared retail reference price are excluded from recovery calculations.
• Sell-through rate: The proportion of listings that complete a confirmed sale (buyer confirmation + escrow release) within the stated window from first public listing date.
• Seasonal index: Monthly listing volume normalised to a Q3 2024 baseline of 100. Index values above 100 indicate above-baseline listing activity.
• Days to first offer: Calendar days between first public listing and the first qualifying offer received, regardless of whether that offer was accepted.

Definitions follow standard liquidation industry conventions. The dataset is internal to Forthclear; third-party replication of any statistic should cite this page and contact info@forthclear.io for the methodology note.