Smarty_Pants

The Economics of Liquidation

"It's worth remembering that a liquidation isn't the kind of sale put on by a store which needs to clear out their shelves in order to make space for new merchandise: There's no new high-margin merchandise coming in for shoppers to buy, and so the opportunity cost of keeping the old merchandise on the shelves is actually very low"

Not entirely true. I stopped in at the local Circuit City store last night and overheard one of the sales reps asking his supervisor when the next shipment of some product was due to come in. Granted, the margins may not be as high as a store would like, but I would imagine that they may still have inventory sitting in their distribution pipeline that they need to liquidate as well.

Still, your article is correct. There wasn't much in the way of real bargains to be found. The only items I noted that were 30% off were accessories to popular sellers like game systems. That stuff is already marked up so much that a 30% discount is probably still very profitable. Almost everything else is was 10% off.

The real bargains will come later when they're only other option is to throw items away.

Rising Unemployment Insurance Claims: Get Ready for a Bleak Christmas

People NEED cash too.

For the moment it's a relatively safe investment class.

A Gigantic Buy - Cramer's Stop Trading! (9/23/08)

Inre: Cramer's advice.

You get what you pay for.