Liquidity Services Inc. (Nasdaq:LQDT), the operator of the world’s largest e-commerce platform for business and government surplus, has chosen Phoenix to launch an online consumer marketplace.

While in business for more than two decades, Maryland-based Liquidity Services has mostly worked as a B2B firm – selling returned retail items, as well as other industrial and governmental surplus goods, to other businesses. But now the company has started a consumer facing business and chose Phoenix as the first location to test the concept.

Going by the name AllSurplus Deals, the company buys returned items from large retailers and then sells them through an online auction and consumers can pick up the purchases at a recently opened Phoenix warehouse. There are new items up for auction each day and the types of items change every day based on what returns the company is able to buy.

In 2020, approximately $102 billion-worth of merchandise purchased online was returned, according to the National Retail Federation.

“The truth is, returned items typically can’t be sold as new, so most major retailers work with a company like Liquidity Services to resell those items on the secondary market,” Jeff Rechtzigel, the vice president of retail at Liquidity Services.

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By Brandon Brown, Reporter - Phoenix Business Journal.