Closing a store is rarely a snap decision, and by the time you're researching liquidation costs, you've probably already been carrying the weight of that decision for a while. You deserve a straight answer about what it will cost — not vague reassurances. So here's the honest version.
How traditional liquidation firms typically charge
Most liquidation and auction firms that run the physical closing sale work on a commission model: they take a percentage of your gross sale proceeds, commonly in the 10-25% range, according to Close Out Explosion's breakdown of auctioneer fees. Exactly where you land in that range depends on your inventory type, sale size, and local market. Larger retailers sometimes see a sliding-scale structure instead — a lower percentage as proceeds increase — as documented in liquidation agreements from bankruptcies like Toys "R" Us and RadioShack, per CRF's analysis of liquidation agreements. For an independent retailer, though, the flat percentage-of-proceeds structure is the far more common arrangement.
The appeal of commission pricing is that it feels risk-free upfront — you don't pay anything until the sale happens. The tradeoff is that you don't know your total cost until the sale is already complete, and the firm's incentive is tied to gross proceeds, not necessarily to the fastest or least stressful process for you.
What actually drives the cost of a liquidation
Whether you go with a commission-based firm or a different model, a handful of factors determine how expensive and how difficult your liquidation will be:
- Inventory value and sell-through difficulty. Higher-value, harder-to-move inventory (specialty goods, large furniture, out-of-season product) usually requires steeper markdowns to clear, which reduces net proceeds regardless of fee structure.
- Lease obligations. If you're still under lease, negotiating an early exit or subletting can be one of the largest and most time-sensitive costs in a closure — and it's a cost most liquidation firms don't help with at all.
- Timeline pressure. A liquidation you're forced to complete in 2-3 weeks will almost always net less than one planned over 4-6 weeks, because rushed markdowns have to be deeper to move volume fast.
- Markdown depth needed. The deeper the discounts required to sell through, the lower your net proceeds — which matters most under a commission structure, since the firm's percentage doesn't change even as your take-home shrinks.
The flat-fee coordination alternative
My Retail Experts' Store Liquidation & Closure Planning service takes a different approach: a flat $2,500 coordination fee, with no performance bonus or commission on your proceeds. That fee covers liquidation strategy, markdown and discount cadence planning, vendor return negotiation guidance, lease-exit coordination, and staff wind-down guidance.
Here's the part that's important to get right: the $2,500 fee does not include the cost of the physical liquidation sale itself. Running that sale — the auction or clearance event — is still handled by a vetted third-party liquidation or auction partner, and you pay that partner separately, on terms you review and approve. What My Retail Experts does is source that partner, negotiate on your behalf, and manage the relationship as part of the flat fee, so you're not left finding and vetting a liquidation firm alone while also trying to run your final weeks of business.
The result: instead of one all-in commission percentage that only settles at the end, you get a predictable planning cost up front, plus a separately negotiated (and reviewed by you) cost for the execution partner.
Example scenario
Say your store has roughly $150,000 in remaining inventory at cost, and a typical liquidation sale nets 55% of that in gross proceeds (about $82,500) after markdowns.
Commission model (20% of gross proceeds): the liquidation firm takes roughly $16,500, leaving you around $66,000 net — and that firm typically isn't helping with your lease exit or vendor returns.
Flat-fee coordination model: you pay My Retail Experts' $2,500 flat fee for planning and coordination, plus whatever fee is separately negotiated with the third-party liquidator for running the sale (commonly in a comparable or sometimes lower range than a firm you sourced alone, since the fee is negotiated on your behalf) — while also receiving lease-exit, vendor-return, and staff wind-down guidance as part of that same flat fee.
The numbers above are illustrative, not a quote — your actual proceeds and fees depend on your inventory, market, and the specific partner you're matched with. But the structural difference holds: one model bundles everything into a single, only-known-at-the-end percentage; the other separates a predictable planning fee from a reviewed, approved execution cost.
Which model makes sense for you
If you want a single firm to handle everything and you're comfortable not knowing your exact take-home until the sale wraps, a traditional commission-based liquidator is a reasonable, well-established path. If you'd rather have a fixed planning cost, a plan for your lease and your team (not just your inventory), and help finding and negotiating with a liquidation partner rather than doing it cold yourself, that's what the flat-fee coordination model is built for.
Either way, closing a store is hard enough without cost surprises. Get clarity on your numbers before you commit to a path.
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