Excess Technologies LLC, a Georgia-based surplus liquidation and auction services company, has launched BoutiquesDirect.com in a new partnership with Boston-based Phoenix Trading Co. The company acquires excess merchandise from local boutiques and sells it online to consumers nationwide.
BoutiquesDirect.com differs from other sellers of surplus and out-of-date merchandise in that it deals with small local boutiques who, because of the small lots they usually stock, have difficulty unloading merchandise they can’t sell. The major department store and discount chains have a ready market for their excess merchandise because they can unload truckloads of it efficiently to chains or online merchants that specialize in selling such merchandise, such as Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, Big Lots, and SmartBargains.com.
“Everyone ignores the boutiques, which have merchandise that is a mile wide but an inch deep,” says Jerome Holtzman, CEO of Excess Technologies. “They don’t have enough of any one style to make it worthwhile for any of these larger retailers to want to do business with them.” Most boutiques deeply discount their excess merchandise, send it to consignment stores or write it down, he says.
BoutiquesDirect.com takes possession of the merchandise, although it doesn’t own it, creates descriptions and takes photos for the web site, processes transactions, fulfills orders and handles customer service and returns. The boutique receives its cut of the sale every two weeks, Holtzman says. BoutiquesDirect will store out-of-season merchandise until the season comes around again.
Without the Internet, BoutiquesDirect.com couldn’t exist, Holtzman notes. Boutiques typically sell within a 5- to 8-mile radius, meaning any store’s market is limited to begin with. The Internet expands the market for merchandise nationally and internationally and allows for an efficient way to reach consumers who are interested in unique merchandise at prices that are 60% to 80% off retail.
“There is a major trend in the fashion industry where people want quality brands that give them a sense of individuality and help them differentiate themselves from their peers and the typical department store brands,” Holtzman says. “For example, BoutiquesDirect.com gives a consumer in Dallas a chance to buy a unique boutique item that may have been on the store shelf at a boutique in Los Angeles.”
BoutiquesDirect.com is an outgrowth of Excess Technologies, which has been selling such merchandise from boutiques for two years, but from the Excess Technologies’ web site, which serves retail customers. The demand for the merchandise was such that the company believed the time was right to spin it off, Holtzman says.
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