Wholesale distributor: Company or person that distributes retail department store  surplus inventories.

The wholesale distributor is used at the end of the supply chain. The retail industry produces many types of distressed product. Overstocks, closeouts , shelf pulls ,display items , scratch and dent and returns are the major types of retail salvage or liquidation merchandise.

Merchants that supply product to Major Retailer's have agreements how to treat these various types of liquidation product. These sales contracts will have provisions for a certain percentage of  customer returns. This creates a" Return to Vendor " (R.T.V. ) o r" Return to Manufacture " ( R.T.M. ) .The R.T.V. product product is sent to the regional return center. The products are put together in lots and sold to wholesale distributors.

The wholesale distributor has a benefit for the retailer and the manufacture. First they pay cash for the merchandise. Second the product liability and warranty liabilities are terminated.The merchandise is salvage. Striped of any and all warranties . This lowers the manufactures product liability costs(if manufacture is not self insured saves premium payments for product).

Here is a custom search engine to find sources for wholesale and Liquidation merchandise.