What we imagine a horrible encounter might look like
Bargain Bump were a recent client of ours. They wished to start an online business and asked us create an online shop for them. We did so, and after talking to them, they explained how they were hoping to get established on the net.
Their first step was to gain a decent eBay reputation, and in order to do this quickly, they decided to sell a large amount of cheap items. They did their research and found a company called TIC Pallets who do pallets of clearance of returns and clearance stock.
They rang TIC to inquire about the products and here’s a log of some of the questions asked:
Do you have any pallets suitable for an eBay startup?
Yes, we have Jambo pallets which are great for eBay sellers and car boot sales. A lot of people take these from us
What is a Jambo pallet, what does it contain?
It’s a mixture of items, things that cost under £50 mostly. Basically anything you could find in Woolworths, and you’ll get between 150 to 200 items.
Great, are these clearance or return items?
They’re returns, but all from within the 28 day guarantee. Some things might have a little fault, but you’ll also get a lot things returned that people just don’t want any more. It’s pick and mix but you’ll have a nice selection of working items that make up for the non-working.
And how much do one of these pallets cost?
It’s £95, plus £45 delivery plus VAT so total will be about £160.
I’m going to be selling for a small family business, that’s going to be based at my home. I’ve got a storage room and a garage, will you be able to deliver there?
Absolutely, our jambo pallets are designed specifically for residential deliveries, you won’t need any equipment. They’ll bring it to the garage for you and they’re a local company for you so there’ll be no trouble whatsoever.
After this conversation they decided that given that there was a mixture of items, so even if 25% were working and the rest faulty, there was chance that they could at least break even by selling the working items.
So willing to take the risk they placed their order with TIC for home delivery. The order was placed on a Friday, and they were told delivery would take place on Tuesday, or Wednesday at the latest.
Tuesday, no delivery. Wednesday, no delivery. Wednesday afternoon rang TIC. They said that it should have arrived and would enquire with the delivery company and call back soon. One hour later, no callback. Two hours, no callback. Another phonecall to TIC and they said that the delivery company would call them.
During the third hour a call was received from the delivery company asking if it’s OK to deliver on Thursday morning. This was fine.
Thursday morning, knock at the door. When they answer the door its the delivery guy. They ask him to bring the pallet round to the garage as promised by TIC. The delivery guy tells them there’s no way this can be done – instead he says all he can do is bring it to the garden.
He parks on the other side of the (busy) road and brings the pallet down using a taillift. How he’s going to get it across the road and into the garden no-one knows.
He walks up and down the street just swearing and cussing, trying to figure out what he’s going to do. Goes over to the van, takes a look inside the big box. Says that it’s full of bags, so what he’ll do is unload them individually and bring them inside the garden. He starts and the Bargain Bump guys decide to help him unload.
After half an hour of carrying little carrier bags of items to the house the delivery is complete. The delivery van goes away.
Next it’s time for inspection. What’s delivered (and we went to see this) is a room full of wet Woolworths bags. Obviously the pallet contents weren’t sealed very well and basically the whole thing got drenched overnight – bye bye chances of finding any working electronic goods in there.
There were childrens scooters in there, which look like they have been ridden for over 6 months. Solar lights which appeared to have been used in a garden for at least 3 months. Superglue, the label of which says that the fault is there’s no glue inside. And loads more junk besides.
Absolutely no fully working items were found. The faulty items were far beyond repair. The whole contents of the pallette were soaked. £165 to have a box of crap, the whole thing wouldn’t even be worth £10.
The entire thing was taken to the junk yard and trashed. £165 down the drain. Nothing that they said on the phone was actually true. The result was nothing like they had expected after the answers they received during the initial phone call.
As the Bargain Bump guys were only a small startup, after this encounter they decided to put off the whole online business thing.
Maybe they were just really, really, really unlucky, and maybe TIC aren’t totally dishonest. But after hearing about this, and seeing all the junk for ourselves (our apologies for not taking any pictures) we’d strongly advise people to think twice before ordering from this place.
We wouldn’t encourage anyone to judge TIC Pallets from a single article published on this blog.
What we’d really recommend is going down and checking out stuff like this in person before ordering – don’t trust their pictures on the net – obviously these are going to be the best possible as an advertising strategy.
We feel really bad for Bargain Bump – they were great clients and it was great to work with them. The Magento store design we made for them will be released shortly as a commercial theme seeing as it’s no longer of any use to them.
UPDATE: This article has been updated on Monday 18 January 2010 at 10:59 GMT. The amendment has been made as Russell (owner of TIC Pallets) requested Cube Websites to remove the article due to being potentially slanderous. As we believe that the article is in fact honest and not slanderous, we have decided to remove any content which could be considered slander and left in only facts which have been provided by the client, and from what we saw ourselves.
I Have spent roughly £8000 with TIC, purchasing leather and fabric suites,i had 1 issue where there was a couple of items missing off the manifest, and they refunded me the difference back, so i have olny had good experiences, there is always a risk in buying customer returns, regardless of were there from, as previous comments have pointed out….look at the manifest, google the price they are selling for now…work out the figures of how much they will cost per unit, make allowences for non-saleable items and dont get too greedy…if it was as easy as spending £300, and doubling ur money without any risk or hard work then everyone would be doing it. It takes hard work and determination, some risk and alot of research…if your not willing to do that then dont even bother with trying it beacaue you will be dissapointed.
thanks
Hello everyone!
Just as an introduction, I have been a market trader for over 15 years, selling goods on eBay and have done hundreds of Car Boot sales in my time. I only buy and sell returns and stumbling across this whole website has made me chuckle and amazed in disbelief and makes me feel that I must add my opinion into the pot for consideration.
I thought I should give you some “neutral” guidance from my experience in the trade and where I wouldn’t want anyone to feel they have lost money in any transaction, there is a fair bit to educate yourselves before you can really say you know what you are doing in the art of buying and selling returns…
I have never ever bought from TIC so I cannot be judged to be biased or anything relating to this but I feel some things need to be said and if some people can be educated from this, then I feel it’s a good thing.
I had been buying from a company “up north” which has recently shut down due to the economy. I am looking to buy stock myself to keep my business going and good stock at a reasonable price is very, very hard to find.
What are returns? These are items that generally have been sold in a retail environment, some of these items would be opened used, open well used, completely working with some cosmetic defect, obviously faulty and damaged to pieces in some cases.
Why do I buy returns? Over all the years I have been trading I must have bought between 4000-5000 pallets (probably more) so I really know what a good pallet is and what a really bad pallet is too. Regardless of all the good and bad points I still make money (I make sure of this you have to) which at the end of the day is why we all try this line of trade.
Why have people had such bad experiences? Many reasons, there are some dishonest companies out there who sell pallets which are not worth anything at all. Some sell what they are sold from their suppliers and depending how far down the chain they have gone can mean the pallet quality deteriates. People may have a bit of savings or a windfall and can’t wait to rush out and buy some stock to make even more money but they seem to miss the 3 obvious pitfalls to disaster – Not asking enough questions. Not viewing the stock before they buy it and NOT doing enough research.
Although, most of the “gripes” on here are short and sweet, none really offer much information and all seem to be “bitter” about their bad experience…. could these experiences have been avoided – YOU BET! People in some respects can’t wait to hand their money over and those type of people will get egg in their faces every time.
Has anyone bought untested returns pallet advertised by some sellers on eBay…. these can be already heavily cherry picked and 90% rubbish – I don’t see people compalining about these?? I will NEVER buy these!
The comments I have read from Richie, W.Bros, Dan, Duncan and David I believe could have all been largely avoided. One mentions when I received my order of 4 pallets they were crushed (it seems to me that these were ordered blindly online) I am sure a visit to that company if he was really serious would have sufficed to view properly those 4 pallets before parting with his money. I will summarise later – please see **
The claim of improper retail prices …. I don’t know about this claim but due to this I have taken the liberty of inspecting the TIC website thoroughly and looked through lots of manifests and Googled the items by hand. I noticed some manifests to be high but that was not every one of them. I have also looked at their John Lewis and BHS and those seem pretty spot on to me. Now my reasoning is…. if the pricing is high deliberately then why is not everything like this as it certainly is not the case in fact.
I would work out the pallet viability by the following: Multiplying the “RRP” by the amount the pallet costs i.e.) 15%, add VAT on and the total is your cost. I tend to add another 10% on to allow for my costs fuel, time or carriage (although I always collect as I like to see what I am getting)
BEFORE buying the item see how much it is selling for elsewhere i.e.) eBay or Amazon. Then and only then, make a decision when I am happy I will make some profit. If that item turns out to be damaged, or unrepairable. I will try and get my money back at worst from what I paid for that item.
I will always sort out the pallet when I have received it into 3 sections… 1. Working 2. Faulty or missing parts 3. Damaged and unrepairable. This has to be done as without proper time and attention you are not going to recoup your investment.
It is all too easy to hold you hands in the air and shreek at the pile on the floor, especially if it looks more undesirable but I have never had to take more to the tip than what I have really needed too.
I will always try to list my fully working, especially with box items on eBay as I will get the best margin there around 50-75% of RRP or my daughter (who has helped me a lot) does list items in the free classifieds as well for me. I have a section of spares and parts which I will get other items working. I will also consider similar pallets to get more of these spares and parts into making working items again. Damaged and unrepairable I will strip down to parts as a lot of parts can be used for another item – one axle or one wheel can fit a lot of other items i.e.) especially toys in the same range like remote contol cars etc.
As a guide I am happy that I get (on average) 50-60% in working form from raw. I manage to rework 10-15% of the damaged items and missing parts. I even manage to get around 5-10% for completely damaged items as spares or sell for scrap. I bought a pallet of return swings once and they were all rusty and couldn’t do much with. I saved the plastic seat, rope and fixings and sold them as tree swings. The metal I got a good price scrap is quite good at the time… I avoided a disaster and made a 15% profit.
Why only 15%? Well I figured this was better than a 70% loss! People have too high expectations (want to make 100% profit on every item) and are too lazy to give attention to the items that need it readily chucking these items in the bin at will…
Remember, any heavy handed child is more likely to damage a toy. Any mirror is more likely to be cracked or damaged – use your brain and think about these things… my best line is always housewares because any adult is going to look after something better than a child and would be more choosy in taste and colour and I find a lot of these type of items would have potential more minimal damage compared to some other lines.
** To summarise I would say if you are not ready to give the time, patience and thought then my advice is do not buy them… if you are, be patient, be level headed, don’t judge the whole experience on just 1 or 2 pallets like some of the comments I have read on here.
As an experiment, I AM going to investigate this TIC company and see for myself because I will give a complete pros and cons reaction and even after reading this forum, it doesn’t put me off one bit in going down there and paying them a visit… I am a careful, level headed, experienced guy and do not make rash decisions, but there again I do not allow myself to be fobbed off either and I would encourage prospective buyers of any type of returns to be the of the same temperament. I may buy some pallets from TIC and report back if people are interested in my views.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without following all of the above… please reread as many times as you need to and if it save some future heartache then I am happy to have helped. Where I doubt that they are the best company in the world. I certainly would not expect them to be the worst from what I have read and I have not been put off as I always make my own judgements and decisions.
Any feedback from any of the other contributors on here would be appreciated, especially the buy once and never again ones or very inexperienced ones…
I have had a lot of people over the years ask me at markets and car boot sales for advice on how they can make a few bob as they see me there week in, week out and they know I wouldn’t do it if I did not make reasonable money from it. I am only too happy to help… there is plenty to go around. I work hard, have a lovely home, car and family and have made this possible by my perseverance and journey into mainly buying store returns and more importantly ….. not being greedy and having too high expectations (I am happy to sell many items and make 20-25% margin on average and I do very well from this)
I wish you all the best,
Gerry
hi gerry just been looking over what you have wrote. im a young lad hoping to start out and was looking for any advice u could give and any direction of a good company that do pallets?? im not really a gready person myself but have a small family that i want the best for and after reading what you have wrote. I feel wee are on the same page?? Im not really in the car boot know how but have been racking my brain on how to turn a coin for my little family. So if you have a small amount of time i would really appreciate any advice or direction you could help with thanks for taking the time to read this.
bobby
IF YOU LOOK AT THE PRICE THEY SAY THE ITEM IS AND CHECK WITH TESCO ETC THE ACTUAL ITEM PRICE IS LOADS LESS SO BAASICALLY THEY MAKE UP THE RRP THEN YOU PAY 15% OF THE MADE UP RRP SO YOUR ACTUALLY PAYING AROUND 30%FOR A PALLET LOAD OF CRAP THATS USUALLY NOT WORKING OR BROKEN BUYER BEWARE
What a nightmare. dealt with alot of companys selling returns for the past 5 years but the crap sold at TIC is really really crap. was told they used to sell mobile phones and got into some sort of trouble so started selling pallets of stock. I bought 4 pallets spent £668 everything was crushed broke really old spoke to owner russell who was very nasty on the phone, didnt get money back was to freightened to take matters further cus they got my home address. Dont Dont buy nasty people.
Hi,
Years back we used to buy their jamba pallets, i think it was about 3 years ago so back in 2008, the first pallet we bought from them we netted a decent profit of about £430 off the top of my head, yes there was alot of rubbish in there, but the elextronics we got working, and fixed alot of the stuff. perseverance is key when you take on a project of customer returns pallets, however we proceeded to buy further pallets from tic, and again made processing profits with each pallet we bought. We must have struck lucky i guess, however since the collapse of woolworths TIC have since ceased selling these jamba value pallets.
We tried buying similar from other companies but received total rubbish. So in fairness towards TIC, they were the best at the right time for us.
Trial and error, be wise be careful and good luck.
Tic is the best company in the world
Tic Pallets are the worst company I have ever bought from.
TIC PALLETS = SCAM
Just had a similar, terrible experience buying from these clowns.
I wish I had seen this first.
Avoid this company at all costs.
This is the problem with buying untested faulty customer returns from TIC pallets. Other companies can supply tested and guaranteed graded products. Such as thompsons discount electrical http://www.tde.co.uk/offers/home/ may be a bit more money but at least you know it will all be working.
I totally agree with this point.
Buying untested returns can be very risky, especially if the company is less than legit ( which it appears to be the case with TIC ). If they are removing the best bits then you will only be left with rubbish.
I have also been ripped off by TIC I bought an electrical pallet from them which I found to be all rubbish, I understand that you take a risk when buying an “untested” pallet but you would expect to receive at least 25% working products. I contacted TIC who say they dont check the pallets or test the equipment and you buy at your own risk, but this is not the case as the pallet manifest clearly says who built the pallet and when, so they are well aware which proportion of stock is damaged and which is not
i have started buying from tic in bulk
and have never had a problem,
85% of the goods are in good condition.
i pick up the goods as im not to far.
TIC pallets put extortionate RRPs on their pallets and when I asked them why an item they say sells for £245 and Tesco say the most its ever been is £155 do they tell me if I dont like it dont buy it!
bear in mind that the higher they say the rrp is the more YOU pay!
Russell at tic emailed me back and said if you dont like it dont buy it and one things for sure I dont and I wont.
just been had payed £665 for a pallet they said retail price was £3200 it was less then £1700 they have false prices to make you think its ok but it is a scam i rang told them they had over charge me by at least £200 just would not refund any money one item was priced at £398 but was £199 broken it is not right or fair to tell whoopers and get away with it take peoples money under false pretence any way never again tic pallet is a scam
I’ve just bought a pallet of returned printers from them. Some have scratches and cosmetic damage but most are boxed and look fine.
I think if somebody is going to be put off from starting up a business on the basis of one bad encounter with a supplier then they didn’t have the resolve in the first place and wouldn’t have succeeded. It’s really hard finding good suppliers and takes a lot of research and then even more work getting trade accounts opened and negotiating prices to give you the right margins. Personally I wouldn’t be put off by one bad experience, even if it mean’t I lost money. Just learn the lessons and move on.
I just bought 6 mini pallets from TIC and the scap they pawned off on me is shocking, yes they do lie and I think some bad PR is on the way for them from a lot of people, I was expecting 25% of good stuff, I paid 1600 quid and I am in Ireland so I also paid for delivery, even higher rip off price for delivery
I HAVE TO DEFEND TIC ,I HAVE BEEN BUYING FROM TIC FOR 18 MONTHS .
WHEN YOU BUY RETURNS YOU TAKE A CHANCE
MY OPPINION IS THE MORE YOU BUY THE BETTER THE ODDS.
IF YOU ARE A SMALL BUISNESS THESE SINGLE PALLET RETURNS ARE NO GOOD
YOU NEED TO BUY BULK.TO REACH PROFIT.
THINK BEFORE YOU BUY.
TIC OVERALL ARE A WELL ESTABLISHED COMPANY.