KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Wholesale liquidation businesses are popping up all over Kansas City offering discount shoppers used, returned, or overstock inventory items at at least 40 to 50% off the retail price.

Everything from furniture to home appliances, clothing to auto parts can be purchased, with some locations providing customers with online bidding platforms to auction on the goods from the comfort of their homes.

“We got an app that we use for everything, which comes with Equip-bids,” Ryan Burns, owner of Depot Daddy in North Kansas City, said. “I’m an affiliate of Equip-bid and that’s what we use to post our auctions on.”

At least 200 new or gently used items are up for auction every day, with each bid starting at just $8.

“So, somebody comes through, gets a couch, you’re the only one who bid on it,’ Burns said. “You bid $8, you’re going to get the couch for $8.”

FOX4 found a Dirt Devil compact vacuum cleaner, which retails for $78.95, on the Equip-Bid site. Through bidding online with Depot Daddy, we managed to finesse the appliance, which had an open box, for a little over $15.

“We just buy everything on it, from the smallest, teeny tiny stuff, to the snowblower,” Lama Jawhari, customer at Depot Daddy, said.

Jawhari said her and her husband bid on a snowblower with a retail value of $400. They ended up winning it for $70, a discounted rate of at least 82%.

“You have to look (online) and see the condition and everything, and if he (her husband) finds the perfect condition, everything’s fine, he’ll buy it,” she said. “If not, we just go to Amazon.”

Andy DiOrio, regional public relations manager at Amazon, said Amazon launched the fulfillment of FBA liquidation programs in 2020 to make it easier for businesses selling on Amazon to resell customer-returned items or overstock inventory.

It’s part of Amazon’s commitment to both small businesses and sustainability.

“Every item returned to Amazon is carefully inspected through a rigorous possess by our trained associates,” DiOrio said in an email. “If it meets our high standards to be resold as new, it’s re-listed for sale.”

While some warehouses sift through pallets of items, pulling out individual products to auction online, others have rented out retail store locations for buyers to browse through the buckets of items themselves.

Melanie O’Dell, owner of O’Dell’s Discount Store in Raymore, said she decided to open up shop after customers started filing in for online pick-up orders, only to ask if they could stay and browse through the rest of her inventory.

“We were like, ‘Yeah, sure, why not?’ and so we opened up retail-wise,” O’Dell said.

O’Dell said her customers range from buyers looking to purchase discounted, individual items for themselves, to resellers looking to buy in bulk. While some buyers walk through her doors ready to browse the shelves, others trek in with a wad of cash, ready to drop hundreds on entire Amazon pallets of product.

“It’s usually a flat $400 (for the pallets),” O’Dell said. “Sometimes, we run specials, but we always advertise those on our Facebook page.”

Alexica Valiquette, wholesale buyer at O’Dell Discount, is cashing in on other people’s unwanted stuff. Having quit her job during the pandemic, she started buying pallets and reselling the products on Facebook Marketplace.

“I just really wanted to be home more, so with that, I realized resale was a great idea,” she said. “I tried it and it worked out way better than I expected.”

Other customers at Depot Daddy, like Michael Scherzberg, business owner, said they buy through wholesale liquidation centers just to cut additional costs.

“I’m opening up a restaurant and wine bar in Overland Park and I’ve been going to the auctions and picking up stuff we may or may not need and saving a bit of money,” Scherzberg said.

He said he probably saved a little over $700 going through Depot Daddy, rather than Amazon or a retail store.

“Nobody’s going to pay full price when they can get essentially the same stuff for a fraction of that.”

Customers at O’Dell and Daddy Depot told FOX4 shopping at wholesale liquidation warehouses is a savings haven that they don’t want others to know about.

“Don’t go sharing our secrets,” one Depot Daddy customer told FOX4.

But these deals and steals are so good, we wanted to make sure everyone knows just how easy it is to either make money, or save it.

For information on online wholesale liquidation auctions near you, visit equip-bid.com.