Meet the Liquidation Heroes:

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TLDW: Liquidation Heroes Webinar Recap

In less than 45 minutes, our three Liquidation Heroes – Keith Tipton from Nestlé, Brei Ham from Dot Foods, and Teri Rislov from Conagra, shared invaluable insights and advice for anyone who manages excess inventory. Using Spoiler Alert, each of these top CPGs has turned their distressed inventory into opportunity, and we couldn’t be prouder to be a part of it. While we highly encourage everyone to watch the full recording, we’re also happy to provide a TL;DW (too long; didn’t watch) version below with some of the best quotes and takeaways from our panel. Read on…

Before Spoiler Alert, each of our Liquidation Heroes was frustrated with their excess inventory management process and tools, which required huge time commitments, were inefficient, and sometimes resulted in human errors. For Teri at Conagra, that meant she couldn’t send out offer lists more than once a month, and then it would take her entire days to get awards out.

Brei said it best… “It was death by spreadsheet that was the defining moment for us,” in deciding they needed to find a new solution. Their old process was taking too much time, and customers expected a quicker, smoother process.

Enter Spoiler Alert…

While we want to encourage all of our Liquidation Heroes to take time off and truly disconnect from work, we still smiled hearing Keith say that the offer and awarding process with Spoiler Alert is so fast and simple, he’s even done it on vacation.

What used to take Teri multiple weeks to complete is now done in just three days (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), freeing up a non-listing week for her to focus on reporting, customer service, and all the other aspects of her job. She’s also able to list inventory twice a month, doubling what she was able to do before Spoiler Alert.

For Brei, what used to take two business days now takes just one hour. She awards offers every week, and is now better able to focus on other priorities and business needs she was placing on the back burner before. 

Beyond being able to manage his offer and awarding process even away from his desk, Keith also said that Spoiler Alert has made him less afraid of making mistakes, a common stressor before he started using the platform. “It’s almost impossible to make a mistake on the platform, it’s that perfect,” he said.

Beyond saving them time and effort, our Liquidation Heroes also shared big wins in terms of increased customers and sales, better cost-recovery, and reductions in destructions and donations. 

For Dot Foods, Spoiler Alert has helped them increase their sales from six figures to a “moderate seven figures,” according to Brei, in just a year-and-a-half! In that same time, they’ve also reduced obsolete expenses by over $2 million. 

At Conagra, Teri has seen a 20% increase in cost-recovery in just their first year using the platform. Their sell-through rate has increased as well, and donations and destructions have gone down.

“I'm selling almost everything now with the exception of a couple of slower categories,” said Keith, who highlighted how before Spoiler Alert, he only had a few customers he was sending offers to, but now has over 30 customers every week. He’s also seen more customers willing to do pickup, which has helped him sell inventory he couldn’t before because it didn’t meet delivery minimums. 

Each of the Liquidation Heroes couldn’t say enough about how Spoiler Alert’s reporting suite has given them the data they need not only to improve accuracy in their process and make better decisions about how to manage inventory, but also to raise their credibility in their organizations. 

“It gives you a level of credibility when you have data that says, ‘hey, this isn't selling and this is how long I've been trying to sell it, ’” said Teri. “We have data to back up our opinions.” Teri also shared how Spoiler Alert’s data accuracy has helped Conagra improve its cost-recovery by giving customers more visibility into the inventory they are bidding on, preventing guesswork and confusion. 

Brei agreed, saying that at Dot Foods, having all their data in Spoiler Alert’s system has helped them better understand their expenses and how to best recoup costs on each item. “Having that data at our fingertips helps us to make good, informed business decisions that we were just kind of best-guessing prior to joining Spoiler Alert,” she said. 

Keith explained how, using Spoiler Alert, he’s better able to see how products are moving through the liquidation process and can get ahead of potential issues by proactively suggesting discounts in order to increase sell-through at the best possible price.

Our customer success team members were grinning ear to ear after hearing the glowing reviews from our Liquidation Heroes in this portion of the webinar. 

“I've been involved in a lot of different software solutions throughout my career, and Spoiler Alert’s customer service team blows everyone else out of the water,” said Brei, who also mentioned how the team challenges her to think differently and gives feedback on what might work best to solve potential problems.

Teri at Conagra also discussed how the customer success team helps her think more creatively and sometimes catches insights she wasn’t seeing. “Really, shout to the team,” she said. “They’re so great.”

But while we were all smiles, the comment that brought a bit of a tear to our eyes was this one from Brei…

“Spoiler Alert really helped me get to a much better place with job satisfaction. Being buried in spreadsheets five days a week can really cause burnout and just the worry that we've all kind of mentioned about making a mistake, and did I miss somebody's bid, just all the things that can go wrong when you're manually managing a process. Spoiler Alert brought that satisfaction back. Not only because I didn't have to stare at spreadsheets all day, but I was able to do various tasks that help mix up the week. So for me personally, the employee experience has been a huge one.”

We’re so glad we could help with that one, Brei.

If you’d like to hear more from our Liquidation Heroes about how they’re using Spoiler Alert to not just improve their excess inventory management, but their jobs in general, watch the full video here! 

And if you’d like to speak with someone from our team about how to join their ranks, book a call at your convenience!