Whatnot is the largest dedicated livestream shopping platform across North America where buyers come to discover great deals on the things they love. Supporting both direct-to-consumer and wholesale selling, Whatnot is the top place to grow your liquidation business - click here to get started.

Introduction

For liquidators, the challenge isn’t just sourcing inventory — it’s what happens after the truck pulls up. Returns, shelf pulls, and overstock can represent opportunity, but turning that opportunity into profit requires more than moving goods quickly.

The real question is: how do you maximize recovery while maintaining efficient operations?

Selling a full truckload moves product fast but often at lower per-unit returns. Breaking that same load into pallets, bundles, or singles can drive stronger recovery, though with more labor and storage.

The most successful liquidators use a blend of formats, aligning resale strategies with their inventory, buyers, and capacity. Top direct-to-consumer liquidators on Whatnot who introduced bulk selling into their strategy saw their weekly sales increase by over 200% while only growing their selling hours by 26%.

Live selling has added another dimension, with Whatnot offering both direct-to-consumer categories and a dedicated Wholesale category. By auctioning inventory in real time, sellers can move volume faster and let the market set prices — often boosting final recovery. Liquidation sellers are proving that flexible strategies across truckloads, pallets, bundles, and singles can unlock higher returns without slowing down operations.

“Selling a mixture of D2C and Wholesale on Whatnot allows us to make larger buys. Lowering our cost per unit, which increases our margins for selling by the piece and allows our wholesale to be at a great price so that the buyer else can make money off of it.” - @circlecityoc on Whatnot

Single Units

Single-unit sales typically deliver the highest recovery, especially for name-brand products or in-demand items (i.e., seasonal, new releases). They connect sellers directly with end consumers willing to pay premium prices.

“With the auction format, you can set start the item as the recovery you want and let the bidding process determine the final sales price." - wesaveyoumoney, Whatnot liquidation seller

The challenge is that this show format is labor-intensive to scale. Every unit requires prep, storage, and fulfillment. Traditionally, this makes singles the slowest format to move. But live selling flips that equation. On Whatnot, liquidation sellers average 60–80+ units sold per hour, turning singles into one of the fastest ways to clear inventory while still capturing top returns. For many liquidators, singles are best used selectively — pulling out a portion of high-value items from larger loads while moving the rest in bulk.

Bundles / Casepacks

Bundles and casepacks offer a middle ground: efficient to prepare, easier to ship than pallets, and attractive to resellers who want manageable quantities. They also help liquidators grow a buyer base — smaller buyers can start with bundles before scaling to pallets or truckloads.

In live auctions, bundles benefit from competitive bidding. Instead of being locked to a set price, their value can rise with demand, especially for branded or category-specific goods. This flexibility makes bundles & casepacks a strong balance between efficiency and margin.

Pallets

Pallets offer liquidators a streamlined way to move inventory with relatively little handling compared to bundles or singles. They can often be sold in the same format they were received, keeping labor costs low while still opening the door to a much wider buyer base — from local resellers to shop owners who can’t take on full truckloads. By grouping pallets around categories like apparel or electronics, liquidators can highlight value in ways truckloads can’t.

While pallets require some light sorting and repackaging, they avoid the intensive labor of singles. In return, they typically deliver stronger recovery than truckloads and move faster than breaking into casepacks. In live selling, the format becomes even more powerful, as competitive bidding can drive pallet prices higher than traditional wholesale deals.

In one recent show on Whatnot, a liquidator sold 24 pallets — a full truckload — for nearly $60k, more than double what the same inventory would have commanded if sold as a single truckload.

Guiding Principles for Choosing the Right Mix

• Match format to inventory

  • Branded SKUs → singles or casepacks.

  • Mixed/bulky goods → bundles or pallets.

• Balance labor with recovery

  • Singles = high recovery, high touch.

  • Truckloads = low recovery, low touch.

  • Casepacks, bundles & pallets = middle ground.

• Know your buyers

  • Wholesalers → pallets or truckloads.

  • Smaller resellers → bundles or casepacks.

  • End-consumer resellers → singles.

• Blend strategies

  • Pull out premium SKUs for singles.

  • Move mid-value goods in bundles/pallets.

  • Clear volume through truckloads.

Maximizing recovery isn’t about choosing one format, but using the right mix. Singles capture the highest returns, casepacks and bundles provide efficiency, and pallets offer scale without heavy labor.

For most liquidators, the winning formula is hybrid — combining formats and leaning on live selling to move inventory faster while letting the market maximize recovery. Live auctions remove pricing ceilings by letting buyers compete in real time, often driving higher returns than fixed-price sales. On Whatnot, top liquidators are earning six figures or more in a single week, demonstrating the power of live selling when scaled across various formats.

If you’re ready to increase recovery rates for your liquidation inventory — whether by the truckload, pallet, bundle, or single unit — connect with a Whatnot team member today to see how live selling on Whatnot can help you get started.

Whatnot is the largest dedicated livestream shopping platform across North America where buyers come to discover great deals on the things they love. Supporting both direct-to-consumer and wholesale selling, Whatnot is the top place to grow your liquidation business - click here to get started.