From cut-price books to Airfyers, Amazon receives a staggering 12.87 million orders every single day.
Of course, not every purchase is a successful one — so what happens to those ill-fitting clothes, gadgets you don’t actually need, and far-too-big furniture when you send them back?
Well, they could end up at Trade Outlet, a little-known UK chain, which gives shoppers the chance to buy Amazon overstock and returns at massively discounted prices.
With seven locations across England and Wales, receiving 20,000 new items a day, discounts can reach a whopping 85% off.
I love a good bargain. From far-away charity shop trips, to early morning January sales, I’ve been known to go to ridiculous lengths for a great deal.
With the sun shining, I headed to Trade Outlet’s largest location, just outside Chester, ready to unleash my inner David Dickinson (minus the tan) and score a steal of a deal.
Preparing for your visit
Before you hire a van and drain your bank account, there are a few details to bear in mind.
Trade Outlet is a predominantly business-to-business (B2B) seller. This means that, similar to Costco, you’ll need to register for an account before you shop, which can be done online or in person. Unlike Costco though, no proof of trading is required, and anyone can shop here.
Although email receipts are provided, there is a no returns policy. In fact, the website states: ‘As we operate outside of the typical consumer legislation, all stock is sold as-is aside from exceptional circumstances’.
All prices at Trade Outlet are listed on products excluding VAT — so remember that all of your items will be more expensive at the till.
My first impressions of Trade Outlet
I arrived bright and early, when the store opened at 10am. Despite proudly being a new account holder, this wasn’t checked by staff — I simply strolled in and started shopping.
As you walk through the door, the sheer size of the place hits you square in the face.
It resembles something akin to a really big charity shop, combined with a jumble sale, and the downstairs area of an IKEA — there are giant shelves stocked with all manner of mysterious-looking parcels and packages.
The sections are roughly organised into categories like ‘Electronics’, ‘Books’, ‘Christmas’, ‘Arts and Crafts’, and more, and my brain starts to hurt as it quickly becomes evident that this is going to take some effort.
The only way to really seek out potential bargains is to get in the thick of it, riffling among the shelves and sifting through the stock.
While I had worried about being barged out of the way by FOMO-mad shoppers, this wasn’t the case though — the store is so big that it easily accommodates large crowds.
Heading first to the electronics aisle, I immediately spy a whole load of wireless earbuds, all with an RRP of around £20, and being sold off forfraction of the cost, at just £2.
I also spot a paper shredder with an RRP of £74.99 on sale for just over £10, various phone cases between £1 and £2, and even a foot massager reduced from £116.20 to just £19.22. One fancy looking iPad case had been slashed from £97.90 to £23.60.
I’ll be honest, in some of the sections, it was clear to see why these products hadn’t been snapped up for their original prices online: there was an inexplicable abundance of photo frames, curtain poles and random computer parts.
There were also the kinds of purchases that I imagined someone had drunk-ordered, only to return when they sobered up — items like said foot massager and a child’s keyboard with a £50+ RRP.
Still, it was the furniture section that impressed me the most. I spotted a luxury leather reclining three-seater sofa (in surprisingly good nick) for £149.51— a £550 saving on its original RRP — and a velvet sofa for £47.40, down from £223.99.
It struck me that Trade Outlet could be a haven for budding interior designers, in the same way that Facebook Marketplace is, transforming these buys into something more stylish.
Perhaps the best bargain I found was also in this section: an L-shaped desk with a price tag of just £7.81, down from £78.08 RRP.
After leaving the furniture, I stepped into another section with much potential: clothing.
I walked between never ending racks of coats, jumpers, shirts, dresses, shoes and accessories.
Several smart-casual blazers by Paul Jones caught my eye, priced at around a fiver (usually at least £60 or more), as well as a long trench coat that was supposed to be £62.17 for £10.36.
This could also be a hidden-gem for parents, as there was a huge selection of books and puzzles for little ones.
The weirdest products at Trade Outlet
Like all stores of this kind, some of the finds at Trade Outlet are truly bizarre, and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion.
Some of the strangest highlights included a child’s ski and snowboard training harness (RRP £59.99, priced at £12.68), at-home drug test screens (£2.17), a sling pet carrier (RRP £18.98, priced at £3.17), and even a wooden box urn for ‘human cremation and pet dog ashes’ (£2.40).
Other honourable mentions include a Ninja-style headband (£1.50), graduation cap and gown costume (£4), and a very Sopranos-esque money clip, priced at £5.22.
Everything I bought at Trade Outlet
Quite a lot, actually. Here’s my full shopping list:
- Wireless headphones: £2
- MacBook case: £2.67 (RRP £15.98)
- Microphone covers: 80p
- Silicone baby’s dummy case: £1.40.
- Blue corduroy sports jacket: £4.17
- Blue cufflinks with a matching bowtie and pocket square: 83p
- Patterned slim tie: £1.60.
- Green suede handbag: £1.17
- Brown button-down corduroy over shirt: £4.67
- Keychain phone charger: £1.69
- Car air fresheners: £1.17)
- Shoe laces: 45p
- Phone case: £1.83
- Pet sling: £3.17 (With apologies to my partner’s dog, Rowdy — I did try and talk her out of it.)
- Two Trade Outlet ‘mystery boxes’: £20 each
Total bill: £60 (including VAT)
What was in the Trade Outlet ‘Mystery Boxes’?
Speaking to one of the store staff, I’m told it’s not unheard of for shoppers to find brand-new phones, projectors, and other high-end items in their mystery boxes.
While this made everything very exciting, it’s fair to say that we had no such luck.
Our two mystery boxes contained around 40 items, ranging from vaguely useful to utterly ridiculous.
Some highlights included a set of (quite nice) champagne glasses, cups, cactus seeds, guitar picks, touchscreen gloves, odd electronic adapters, and a 13-piece set of garden sprinkler attachments. Lovely.
However, some of the more bizarre picks included printer cartridges for a Lexmark, a Scotland-themed drawstring bag, three sets of decorations for a children’s birthday party, self-adhesive metal tape, some drill bits, two matching sailor costumes (yes, really), and… a pot of blue slime.
There were also several items that, to my mind, were completely unidentifiable in their purpose in the absence of clear labelling.
And, for the record, I also now own enough phone cases to start up a shop in a motorway service station.
My verdict on Trade Outlet
Will any of the items I purchased today change my life? No, probably not. Am I glad I went and checked out Trade Outlet? Absolutely.
The key to navigating this kind of shopping is a mixture of perseverance, timing, and good luck.
You could quite literally spend hours looking through all the various nooks and crannies of place, but I’m not sure anyone has that kind of time.
Although most of the items I found were unbranded (or brands I didn’t recognised), the website claims that spotting high-end names isn’t not uncommon — maybe I’ll have better luck next time?
Plus, with so many items being added to the shelves daily, your potential for bargains changes wildly, and every day is essentially a new roll of the dice.
I, for one, will definitely be stopping by from time to time.
That being said, I won’t opt for another mystery box until I figure out what on earth to do with the contents of the last two.
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