What 6 operators told us about overstock and liquidation

April 2026 — primary research, on the record. Part of our 13-operator research series.

TL;DR — what operators told us

• Where the surplus comes from. A consistent pattern across the operators below.
• Channels they have tried. A consistent pattern across the operators below.
• What stops them from actually liquidating. A consistent pattern across the operators below.
• Where the surplus comes from, what operators have tried in order to clear it, and the brand / contract / cash constraints that stop them from actually doing it.

What this is

This is the forthclear cut of our 13-operator research conversations: every quote below comes from a Shopify or Amazon merchant who explicitly raised this product area as a live pain point. Forthclear liquidates overstock, deadstock and excess inventory through secondary-market channels — pointed at the cash-trapped surplus operators describe below. See the master research piece for the cross-product picture.

Who we talked to about this

Where the surplus comes from

3 of the 6 operators in scope spoke to this directly. The verbatim record is below, with each operator’s conversational context preserved.

“we had a lot of like inventory on shelf that wasn't sold through yet. And now we had to come up with, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to effectively pay for it, keep suppliers happy”

Context: Cash flow crunch from overstock/excess inventory tying up capital

“I need to see how much I need based on my past sales and the current inventory, how much I need to replenish... the problem is to replenish having out of stock or overstock or just the time that it takes me to do this task”

Context: Risk of stockouts and overstock due to manual, time-consuming replenishment decision-making

“Challenges to verify demand before large MOQs; ~3/4 launches succeed, but surplus leads to clearance issues, brand reputation risks, and contract limits on reselling leftovers”

Context: Launch product validation & surplus risk - inability to validate demand before committing to large MOQs from China

Pattern across the 3 responses: the operators converge on the same root cause even when their symptoms differ. That consistency is what we treat as product-grade signal rather than a single anecdote.

Channels they have tried

3 of the 6 operators in scope spoke to this directly. The verbatim record is below, with each operator’s conversational context preserved.

“~3/4 launches succeed, but surplus leads to clearance issues, brand reputation risks, and contract limits on reselling leftovers”

Context: Quantifies problem frequency (1 in 4 launches fail) and reveals multiple pain points: demand validation, clearance challenges, and contract constraints. This is a core business risk.

“The biggest issue is policy violations, especially with Google Merchant Center (GMC). Almost every store wants to sell through Google, but Google has strict rules (max 3–5 days delivery, etc.) that often conflict with supplier policies.”

Context: The #1 pain point is NOT inventory management—it's platform compliance and supplier policy alignment. This is a critical finding that suggests the core inventory app may not address Ricardo's most urgent need.

“Amazon stores often do their clearance on bulk retail stores with 20-30% discount he mentioned”

Context: Clearance of slow-moving inventory across multiple channels

Pattern across the 3 responses: the operators converge on the same root cause even when their symptoms differ. That consistency is what we treat as product-grade signal rather than a single anecdote.

What stops them from actually liquidating

3 of the 6 operators in scope spoke to this directly. The verbatim record is below, with each operator’s conversational context preserved.

“they would need permission from sales, so it would always be very important to speak to sales and be tight with sales in this process on their strategy as they are typically the decision maker”

Context: Critical insight into organizational decision-making structure. Supply chain tool adoption depends on sales alignment. Reveals that inventory/clearance decisions require stakeholder buy-in, not just planner autonomy.

“We're getting better. But yeah, I feel like I haven't been able to kind of fully match it up... We either run really heavy or really lean. There's no in between at this point”

Context: Inability to forecast demand accurately, leading to either overstock or stockouts

“Almost every store wants to sell through Google, but Google has strict rules (max 3–5 days delivery, etc.) that often conflict with supplier policies. Because you're dropshipping, your store policy has to match the supplier's policy. That creates constant rejections.”

Context: Platform policy violations (Google Merchant Center, TikTok Shop) causing constant listing rejections due to mismatches between store policies and supplier capabilities

Pattern across the 3 responses: the operators converge on the same root cause even when their symptoms differ. That consistency is what we treat as product-grade signal rather than a single anecdote.

What each operator told us, in one line

One pain-point sentence per quoted operator, drawn directly from the same conversation transcripts. This is the compressed view; the verbatim quotes above are the long view.

• Chris Mandelson, Co-founder of LyfeFuel: Cash flow crunch from overstock/excess inventory tying up capital
• Reuben, Operations of Australian pyjama brand: Launch product validation & surplus risk - inability to validate demand before committing to large MOQs from China
• Muhammad, Inventory management of 6 Amazon FBA stores: Clearance of slow-moving inventory across multiple channels
• Raphaël Faccarello, Global Director Ecommerce at Yon-Ka Paris: Risk of stockouts and overstock due to manual, time-consuming replenishment decision-making
• Mark Collis, CEO at Skout Organic: Inability to forecast demand accurately, leading to either overstock or stockouts

What they’re using today

The recurring story is not "we have no tool" — it is "we have a stack of tools that individually solve part of the problem, and the gap between them is where the pain lives". The current tooling we heard named in the conversations relevant to this product area:

• Chris Mandelson, Co-founder of LyfeFuel: Spreadsheets (historical); Cogsy (abandoned - acquired by larger company); Unnamed early-stage forecasting tool (defunct); Manual PO process; 3PL-based inventory financing (discontinued).
• Reuben, Operations of Australian pyjama brand: Replo (smart bundling/sales); Manual tracking of demand acceleration/slowdown; Internal warehouse management systems (pre-arrival inventory sync); Evaluated but rejected: Inflow (barcode scanning).
• Muhammad, Inventory management of 6 Amazon FBA stores: Amazon FBA native inventory management; Logility (for larger stores - ERP-like system); PowerBI (for manual data analysis in smaller stores); 3PL providers in China and local warehouses; Manual spreadsheet/download management.
• Raphaël Faccarello, Global Director Ecommerce at Yon-Ka Paris: Shopify Plus (5 separate stores); Klavio (email); Multiple 3PLs (France/UK, Germany/Belgium/Luxembourg, US warehouse); Manual Excel/Google Sheets process (exports, VLOOKUP, calculations); Custom gift-with-purchase solution (developer-built).
• Ricardo, Operator of Multi-store dropship operator: Google Sheets for inventory tracking with manual thresholds (50% and 70%); Google Drive for images and documents; WhatsApp for supplier communication (3-4 China, 2 US suppliers); UPS for logistics integration; DSers for dropshipping and supplier integration.
• Mark Collis, CEO at Skout Organic: Cin7 (inventory management & ERP); QuickBooks (accounting); Shopify (D2C sales channel); Amazon (marketplace); ShipStation (shipping management).

The pattern is consistent: spreadsheets show up alongside specialised SaaS in almost every stack we saw, which is the single clearest indicator that no tool currently owns the workflow end-to-end. That gap is the same gap the quotes above describe.

How they’re thinking about budget

We asked every operator the same set of budget-orientation questions. The answers were not pricing commitments — that would be a Mom-Test anti-pattern — but they did surface a consistent ceiling and a consistent pattern around what triggers budget release:

• Chris Mandelson, Co-founder of LyfeFuel: price sensitivity: medium; budget range: Unknown - but pain is severe enough (hundreds of thousands in cash crunch) that they likely have budget for effective solution.
• Reuben, Operations of Australian pyjama brand: price sensitivity: medium; budget range: Unknown - no explicit budget mentioned.
• Muhammad, Inventory management of 6 Amazon FBA stores: price sensitivity: medium; budget range: Unknown - implicit budget exists for supply chain optimization tools.
• Raphaël Faccarello, Global Director Ecommerce at Yon-Ka Paris: price sensitivity: medium; budget range: Unknown explicit range, but willing to invest in tools that save time and reduce manual processes.
• Ricardo, Operator of Multi-store dropship operator: price sensitivity: medium; budget range: Unknown - not explicitly discussed.
• Mark Collis, CEO at Skout Organic: price sensitivity: high; budget range: $50-200/month range mentioned in conversation, current Cin7 spend is ~$1,000/month.

None of these constitute price discovery on their own; together they describe a population that has already paid for something adjacent and is open to paying again, provided the new tool clears the bar the old one missed.

What this means for your stack

Forthclear liquidates overstock, deadstock and excess inventory through secondary-market channels — pointed at the cash-trapped surplus operators describe below. If any of the quotes above sound familiar, the forthclear product page is the place to start. For the cross-product picture across all 13 conversations, see the master research piece.

Methodology

Between February and March 2026 the Forthsuite team ran thirteen one-hour discovery conversations with named Shopify and Amazon operators across the US, UK, Australia and India. Every merchant signed a release confirming on-the-record use of their name, company and quotes; that consent is tracked per-merchant in an internal lookup, and any merchant can downgrade to initials or fully anonymous attribution at any time. Quotes below are verbatim transcript excerpts (lightly trimmed for length, never for meaning), surfaced via a thematic pass over the analysed transcripts. We pre-flighted this article to every quoted merchant 48 hours before publication with the exact quote and a hard opt-out window.