The manufacturer of such brands as Dove soap, Noxzema skin cream and Q-Tips is selling bulk quantities of its products through a new ecommerce portal launched earlier this week.

Consumer brand manufacturer Unilever this week launched an online auction portal offering excess goods in bulk volumes.

The online marketplace, Unilever Liquidation Auctions, provides businesses the chance to purchase bulk quantities of overstock items directly from Unilever, the company says. For now, available brands include personal care products AXE, Dove, Suave, St. Ives, Vaseline and Q-Tips.

Unilever says it will soon add more brands, covering such categories as Food & Refreshments and Beauty as well as Personal Care.

Unilever is the latest major brand manufacturer to launch a liquidation portal on ecommerce technology from B-Stock Solutions, whose clients also include Hanesbrands Inc. and retail pharmacy chain Walgreens. Products on the liquidation portals are available to auction bids placed by qualified businesses.

Bidding for an auction inventory of 33,000 items

Auctions listed today on the Unilever liquidation site included one offering six pallets of “lotion, hair care and body wash” products under such brands as AXE, SheaMoisture and Suave; the six pallets contained a total of 32,760 individual items in 1,978 cases. The listing noted a total retail price of $80,546; the current bid as of noon Central time was $12,550, with the auction open for three more days.

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B-Stock does not charge up-front fees to launch a marketplace, which it says takes about 30 days to onboard a new seller with their own branded portal. It declined to comment on what it charges in ongoing transaction fees, but says “our fee structure is volume-based; our revenue is tied to how well we perform for our clients.”

B-Stock Solutions operates the online platform including product content and auctions on behalf of sellers. “All sellers need to do is send us the inventory they are selling,” a B-Stock spokeswoman says. B-Stock uses marketplace data to “build the auction lots and get sellers’ products listed” with product images, auction titles and descriptions of auction lots.

For sellers that don’t handle their own order fulfillment and delivery, B-Stock makes such services available through partnerships with third-party logistics providers including C.H. Robinson.

(Regarding Unilever’s ecommerce operations outside of its liquidation efforts, Marta Dalton, the company’s global ecommerce director, discussed its strategy for developing and running a global ecommerce platform at the B2B Next 2019 conference.)

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