Oct. 29, 2021

A Sioux Falls couple is expanding their liquidation retail business with a second location that will sell entire pallets stacked with merchandise.

A Crate Deal Liquidation Outlet will offer sales every other Saturday from a building in an industrial area on the north edge of Tea.

The first sale is the weekend, and the space at 46923 Austin St. is filled with 30 pallets that are “just a little different kind of mystery and treasure hunt,” said Cole Schantz, who started A Crate Deal last year in Sioux Falls with his wife, Alisa.

The shrink-wrapped pallets are sold exactly as they come in from the distributor.

While some merchandise is in its original box, other “mystery” boxes are filled with miscellaneous items.

“A lot of these that are Sterilite, those are 100 percent mystery stuff in there,” Cole Schantz said. “We found an iPad so far, brand-new.”

Unboxing a pallet is a form of entertainment because you don’t know what you’ll find, Alisa Schantz said

“It really is just luck,” she said of the mystery boxes. “There’s no rhyme or reason with it. Some of them might have something like that (the iPad), and others will not. It’s just a total mystery. It’s a gamble on what’s in the mystery boxes.”

They did three unboxings this week and posted videos on A Crate Deal’s Facebook page to give shoppers an idea of what they might find.

While some merchandise is new, some items are returns, and others could have slight damage.

Prices for the pallets will vary at each sale, but this week’s range is $350 to $800. The Schantzes estimate that the MSRP value, or manufacturer’s suggested retail price, will be three to four times greater than the pallet’s sticker price.

Much of the merchandise will be similar to what shoppers have been finding at the original store at 2520 S. Carolyn Ave. There, the Schantzes and their seven employees break down similar pallets of merchandise into 4-by-4 crates. They start sales each Friday with all items priced at $7. The price drops every day until Tuesday, when everything left is 50 cents.

When the doors in Tea open at 3 p.m. Saturday, customers will purchase a pallet by removing a piece of paper on it that includes the price and its inventory number. Once the tag is removed, the shopper must buy that pallet.

“Every two weeks, it’s going to be different,” Alisa Schantz said. “We get from big-box stores, but it also could be tools. This one, there’s not so many tools in here, but another week there might be more tools, so we’ll do sneak peeks on our Facebook page.”

Purchased pallets will be moved to a loading area at the back of the shop. They will be loaded with the shop’s forklift onto pickups or trailers, or shoppers can break down the pallet on-site and load the boxes into a vehicle.

To start, the sales will be from 3 to 7 p.m. every other week, but that could expand to weekly if the demand is there.