This year our team had the opportunity to visit the first WHSL Market Week located in Louisville Kentucky. We had an amazing week, and hope to see this convention returning in the future. Read about our experience here, and check out our YouTube Channel for the full vlog!
What Is WHSL Market Week?
WHSL Market Week is a brand new convention for midwestern businesses in the liquidation industry. WHSL stands for “wholesale, surplus, and liquidation.” This convention features an expo hall filled with vendors and industry leaders as well as breakout sessions to help small business owners grow in their field.
Damian (our founder) and Kamil (our operations director) spent a week in Kentucky exploring this convention this fall. Here’s what we found!
What WHSL Brings To The Table
We spoke with Matt Leavell, who is one of the men responsible for pulling off this convention. When asked what WHSL Market Week is all about, he was clear: the goal is to help small and medium sized businesses in the liquidation industry build connections and avoid scammers.
The reality is that in the liquidation space, a lot of small business owners quit way too soon due to lack of education, overextending themselves, or because of a bad business transaction. The solution? Quality networking and education.
At WHSL, they wanted to make sure that honest, midwestern business owners in the liquidation and bin store industry had a place to build connections that could be mutually profitable. In order to do so, every vendor was vetted - no scammers allowed. We truly appreciated this approach, because it meant that we could engage with the other vendors confidently!
Because WHSL found such quality businesses to fill up their event, they also had some awesome breakout sessions to help educate new business owners. We particularly enjoyed Paul Kerry’s “Leveraging Social Media For Business” - something that we are pretty passionate about as well.
Overall, WHSL had a lot to offer - but it all boiled down to quality networking and education for those working in the liquidation industry.
Takeaways From An Honest Business Owner
Our team has been in this industry since 2020, and we’ve been on both sides. We started out as a bin store looking for quality suppliers so we could offer the best prices to our community. Now, we are a wholesale supplier looking for the best deals on liquidated inventory so we can offer the best deals to business owners in our community. That gives us a pretty unique perspective!
In our opinion, this convention is a BIG WIN for the liquidation industry. WHSL is a great way to meet other businesses in this space, network with potential customers and suppliers, and learn from people who are doing it right! We especially appreciate the effort that the WHSL team took to ensure that their vendors were doing business as every good midwesterner should - with honesty, hard work, and integrity.
WHSL Market Week is 100% Nice Find Wholesale approved!
Things We’re Looking Forward To
After spending a week in Kentucky for WHSL, we walked away with a lot to look forward to. We built some solid connections while we were here - not only did we make some sales, but we also snagged a few deals ourselves and got some great truckloads from the businesses we met in the expo hall. That left us eager to continue building these business relationships! We’re looking forward to seeing our network grow and expand after the connections we built here.
We are also looking forward to seeing how the “Allstocked” app and technology plays out. This is something that was advertised pretty heavily at the convention, and has the potential to majorly benefit businesses in this space. The software is not released yet and still under production, but could allow buyers and sellers to connect online and easily buy and sell loads from trusted business owners all within the app. There is potential for some back-office software that sellers could use to manage their business, too. We’re definitely interested in seeing how this software develops and what impacts it has on the liquidation industry!
Conclusion: Grab A Ticket Next Year!
Most importantly, we’re looking forward to WHSL Market Week 2025! The dates are not confirmed yet - so keep an eye on the WHSL website and be sure to grab a spot once tickets go live. Nice Find Wholesale will be there, and we hope you will be too!