Marketcraze.com, inc (MC) was incorporated way back in 1999 when you needed to let everyone know you were a DOT COM with your name.
The company initially focused on developing eCommerce technology and piloting online marketplaces for small companies to share a common infrastructure for doing business online.
The most recent incarnation of Marketcraze Warehouse (MCWH) was founded only in 2022 and is now building an internal collection of stores to help match consumers with lost inventories sourced within our core niches. The current buildout niche is for cosmetics sourced inside the USA.
From where is my product shipped?
The current warehousing location is in Canton MI USA. We expect this location to be temporary. We are processing orders seven days a week until further notice.
From where is this product sourced?
Our products are all domestically sourced from those with licenses to distribute these products. The arrangements fall into several categories.
Reverse logistics liquidations. These are merchandise lots that have fallen out of the traditional top-down distribution chain, for a variety of reasons -- from the manufacturer, through distribution, to retailer, to customer. This could be a damaged shipment, delayed orders/shipments thus refused or rejected, or other inventory that has value but is no longer in the primary distribution flow supporting the company’s primary operating model.
Overstock inventory. These can be forecasting errors or simply changes in allocation plans. The goal being they want their space and money back to place a different inventory bet. We help them get that liquidity so they can move on.
Manufacturer Overstock. This happens when a manufacturer has a targeted production volume they want to maintain but the demand is not currently matching it. Therefore, the excess production must be temporarily offloaded to keep from having to operate below their target or to retain inventory that exceeds the immediately shippable demand. By selling this off they keep in their sweet spot and keep from having to force product into their channels it cannot currently handle.
Shelf Pulls. This is an internal “reverse logistics” problem. These items come back to corporate from retail stores. These are seasonal displays, changes in color-schemes, promotional quantities and packaging, items with handling wear, or inventory quantity mismatches. Generally, this is a less desirable purchase category for us because we must manually inspect every item or risk making excuses. Retailers hate restocking and rebalancing non-standard stock and therefore love the chance to offload it on someone else.
Customer Returns. We avoid this inventory type whenever possible. If we have any, then it’s because we were forced into taking it. Don’t expect it to be listed in the new listings or in our primary sites. We won’t knowingly sell returns without documenting it in the listing.
Damaged Goods. Like customer returns, we avoid these whenever we can, but sometimes we are contracted to take everything they have. If we can save items from the damaged shipment then we will, but we won’t be surprising anyone with products that don’t work (on purpose).
Cosmetics mass merchandisers who rebalance their inventories and ask for bidders to clear their warehouse space include RiteAid, Walgreens, CVS, Target, and many others. We don’t currently buy from Amazon or places where we have very little visibility into what we are buying. Ideally, we are seeking an informed and fair arrangement, not a roll of the dice on mystery shipments.
Manufacturers who often direct their excess production into liquidation channels include Nestle/Loreal and Revlon/Almay, among others. All of these items are coming in factory master cartons and sub-cartons. We have every confidence that they are authentic. We will constantly be looking for more of these sources. Although frankly, we don’t always find a match with these offers. If someone offers us a truckload of orange eye shadow, we really don’t have the customer base to move that at any price. Such a purchase would be trapped with us just as it was with them, so we have to pass on those.
Of your sales channels, which store should we use?
This Website. This store gets things quickly, although they almost always required some manual handling and entry for new content. The advantages of this site over our other channels are: more variety of items by condition, more options for payment, more options for combined shipping or free shipping, more opportunities for specials and coupons. Options for notification on incoming stock and back-in-stock conditions.
eBay Store. This store has fewer items but usually the higher quality ones in this niche. This website is good for combining items with other vendors in one cart since there are so many other options, or for confirming prices. Our eBay shipping right now is pretty much at cost. Specials, shipping combinations, and coupons are harder to implement there and thus less prominent. Shipping eBay internationally is done quickly and cheaply as compared to other channels. For buying a single item internationally this is probably your best source.
Amazon Store. The downside is that we need to be authorized for every brand we sell here, so the process to get new categories or types of items online with Amazon can stall whenever new brands emerge in our catalog. But when new items come in they can go online here with the least effort and therefore the most speed. For any given new item in an approved brand, it will show up here first. On the downside, it’s harder to find all items from a specific vendor on Amazon. Shipping is standard Amazon shipping. We don’t have a lot control over that to do specials. We don’t keep stock at Amazon warehouses for PRIME shipping because we need to fulfill for several different platforms with presumably the same item. It is possible to use FBA PRIME warehouses and still support other storefronts, but it’s not trivial. That’s a project for later.
WalMart and Bonanza. Not much to say about these yet. I’ll update my opinion when I have more information. When Amazon and eBay are “cooking,” we will be rolling out the WalMart integration. I’ll post on that in our Blog when it happens.
Policies and Procedures:
What are your return policies?
If you buy something and it doesn’t meet your expectations, we will refund your money. Contact us to let us know how we failed to meet your need and whether you need a replacement or refund. Our goal is to grow our customer base and we can’t do that without treating customers like this.
What if my item differs from the description?
This is a real risk in our operating model. Since we deal with products flowing in from various sources and rely on their scanned UPC EAN numbers to match them to our SKUs and descriptions, it is entirely possible that a manufacturer’s UPC does not always match to the exact same SKU and description over time and from various sources. Thus there is a very small but finite risk that the item pulled will match the code on the listing but differ in the physical attributes. This is a real-world risk within our operating model, and we are constantly expanding our checks and balances to capture variations and prevent this.
In all cases, including trivial ones, we want to hear about it so we can flag this item and properly track its variations.
If this means that the item failed to meet your expectations, then we are sorry for our mistake. We will seek to fix the listing and to achieve your satisfaction for your specific order. Please let us know.
