Donating excess or unsellable stock is one of four exits, beside holding it, discounting it, and removing it. The cash is already spent, so the only question left is which exit returns the most of it. Score the batch first, then confirm the program terms inside your own account.
The short version
- The money left when the pallet landed. Holding, discounting, removing, and donating decide only what you recover from here.
- One person owns the call. It belongs to whoever owns the whole account, never to your ads specialist.
- Score the batch, then pick the exit. Rating trend, return rate, conversion rate, and cost of customer acquisition are the four signals that decide it.
- Write the stop rule before you need it. If those numbers are not improving inside a defined window, usually 60 to 90 days, the stock leaves.
- The program terms live in your own account. Confirm eligibility and routing there, and the tax treatment with your accountant.
Score the batch before you choose an exit
In most accounts, aged stock gets decided by mood. Somebody notices the units in month seven, feels the loss, and holds another quarter. A number settles it faster than a feeling.
| Criterion | The read | Weight | Full points when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rating trend | Direction across the last 60 to 90 days | 25 | Holding or climbing |
| Return rate | Share of units coming back, and why | 25 | Under 8% and steady |
| Conversion rate | Share of visits that buy at today's price | 20 | At or above your baseline |
| Cost of customer acquisition | What one new customer costs, month over month | 20 | Falling |
| Condition of units on hand | What inspection and complaints say | 10 | Sellable as they are |
Flapen figures as of September 2026. The weights start here and the pass mark is yours.
Set that pass mark in writing before you score anything, 70 out of 100 for example. A batch above your line has earned more time and a fix. A batch below it is inventory you are storing out of hope.
What each exit does to the cash you already spent
Start with the number every path gets measured against. Multiply units on hand by what one unit cost you landed, and write that figure at the top of the page. Then divide units on hand by last month's units sold, which gives your months of cover.
Both numbers are yours. Two years of cover on a product below your line is a decision you are avoiding rather than a stocking problem.
| Path | What happens to the units | What it costs from here | Where the terms live |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hold | They wait for a score that may not change | Storage charges plus the frozen cash | Your own fee statements |
| Discount | They clear at a lower price | The margin you give up | Your own margin sheet |
| Remove | They leave the network and return to you | Moving them, plus somewhere to put them | Confirm in your account |
| Donate | They leave and do not return to you | What your account is charged | Your account, then your accountant |
Every figure in the last two columns is yours, read from your account. The table names no cheapest path, because that answer moves with your landed cost and your margin. It shows that three of the four paths end with the units gone, so the choice is how many months you pay to delay that.
Who owns the call, and the weekly read that feeds it
The seller who asks me this runs one to three products at $5K to $30K a month. The line is the same every time: "I don't have the profitability I expected." Part of that profit stands in a warehouse corner, in units that stopped selling in month four.
Nobody wrote a rule for those units, so silence renews them every month. The call belongs to one named person who owns listings, advertising, pricing, and stock together. Split the account across specialists and the write-off has no owner, so put that name beside the stop rule.
The read is short: units on hand, units sold last week, the four signals, and this week's score. Ours reaches clients in writing every week with a live review every two weeks, and yours can be one sheet.
Then write the stop rule and date it. Ours reads like this: if the four signals are not improving inside a defined window, usually 60 to 90 days, we stop. Scale earns more capital, fix gets a named diagnosis and a deadline, kill ends it with no emotion.
The batch you are scoring was created upstream, at the factory. Sourcing and quality control sit in our own Guangzhou studio, on frameworks built across 500+ brands. A unit caught there never becomes a warehouse decision here, and nothing in that chain is subcontracted.
Phase 1 exists for the same reason: 200 units on $5,000 to $10,000, so an idea that fails leaves a small pile of stock. Order 2,000 units of an unvalidated product and the donation question is written into the purchase order.
What most agencies will not tell you about aged stock
A monthly fee earns the same whether your stock sells or sits, and that conflict lives in every management contract, ours included. A percentage of ad spend is worse, because the batch nobody should advertise is still billable. So ask four questions before you sign.
| What you ask a provider | Weight | Full points when the answer is |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the stop call, and what did they stop last month | 30 | A name, a product, and a date |
| What is in the weekly read, and who writes it | 25 | Units, the four signals, and a score, in writing |
| Who inspects goods before they ship, and where do they sit | 25 | Employees in a named place, nothing subcontracted |
| What happens to your fee when my catalog shrinks | 20 | It holds, because the fee is flat |
Set your pass mark before the call, because a good pitch moves an unwritten line. Score us with the same table. Our fee is flat at $800 a month for one product and $2,400 for five, month to month on 30 days' notice.
The answer that should worry you is a vague one on inspection, since a partner network cannot say who touched your units. If we miss your pass mark, do not hire us.
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One free thing to do this week, whether you run one product or three at $5K to $30K a month. List every product with units on hand and write beside each the date its last unit sold. Then score your worst two with the table above.
Inside 20 minutes you will know which batch is waiting on a decision nobody has made.
To have that list read by an operator, ask for the free written audit and get prioritized fixes back inside 48 hours from Flapen.
