Returns are enormous. US retail returns hit an estimated $849.9 billion in 2025, about 15.8 percent of all sales, according to the National Retail Federation. For an independent Shopify store, the question is not whether returns happen. It is what each returned unit is worth on its way back out.
Most merchants never do that math. They pick the channel that feels easiest, usually a liquidator or a marketplace, and never see how much value leaks out. So here is the math, channel by channel, for a returned item that retailed at $200.
Channel 1: Liquidation
Liquidators buy returns by the pallet, priced against your wholesale cost, not retail. Industry buying guides put well-graded customer return loads at 15 to 35 percent of wholesale cost, and mixed ungraded loads at 8 to 20 percent.
Follow the arithmetic. If wholesale runs 40 to 60 percent of retail, a $200 retail item carries maybe $100 of wholesale cost. A graded liquidation lot at 25 percent of wholesale returns you about $25, and an ungraded lot closer to $10 to $15. That is 5 to 12 percent of the item's retail price, which is where the phrase pennies on the dollar comes from.
Liquidation has one real virtue: it is instant. One pickup and the pile is gone. You pay for that speed with nearly all of the item's remaining value, and your product often reappears on marketplace listings you do not control, at prices that undercut you.
Channel 2: Marketplaces
Selling returns yourself on eBay or similar recovers far more per unit, often 40 to 70 percent of retail for open-box goods in good condition. But you pay in fees and time: final value fees, listing time of 15 to 60 minutes per item, packing, shipping, and customer questions, all off-platform from your actual store. We compared the numbers in detail in our eBay versus own-store breakdown.
The bigger cost is invisible: the buyer belongs to the marketplace, not to you. No email, no remarketing, no second purchase.
Channel 3: Your own store
The item is already photographed, described, and reviewed on your own product page. Relisting it there as an open-box unit means the discount is the only thing you give up. Sell that $200 item at 25 percent off and you recover $150, six times the graded liquidation payout, and the buyer lands in your customer list, not eBay's.
The catch has always been labor, which is exactly what an automated open-box system removes. DRIP by Returns For Sale lists the returned unit against the original product page in about a minute, drops the price a little each day until it sells, and takes the listing down automatically when it does. Merchants have resold more than 20,000 items this way.
The honest comparison
The same $200 item, run through each channel:
- Liquidation, graded lot. You recover roughly $25. It clears in days. The buyer is nobody you will ever know.
- Liquidation, ungraded lot. Roughly $10 to $15, same speed, same anonymous buyer.
- Marketplace. $80 to $140 before fees and before your own listing time. Takes weeks. The buyer belongs to the marketplace.
- Your own store, listed open box. $120 to $160, clearing in days to weeks, and the buyer is yours.
Those are worked examples using the sourced ranges above. Your mix and your condition grades will move them.
Liquidation still has a place, for true junk and for pallets nobody should touch. But if a unit works and looks presentable, sending it to a liquidator is choosing a $25 check over a $150 sale.
Stop writing returns off. DRIP by Returns For Sale relists your returned and open-box items on your own store, drops the price a little each day until they sell, and removes the listing automatically when they do. No subscription, no setup fee, and your first 30 days are commission-free.
