What would you do with a truckload of overstock packaged popcorn from stores?
If you’re partners Shawn Allen and Kellen Campbell, you would build a business around it that lets people bid on such excess inventory that includes everything from a truckload of popcorn to pallets of espresso machines, vacuums and other consumer goods.
Allen founded M@C Discount with Campbell in 2018. The online retail liquidation company operates on a mixed business model that combines brick-and-mortar warehouse sites and online bidding.
“I feel like an auction is just a true environment where the person that wants it the most gets it,” Allen says.
Items are processed and added to the online auction after they are offloaded from trucks. No reserve price is required, with bidding on all items beginning at $1. Winning bidders then pick up the items at the selected M@C Discount warehouse.
National Consumers League reports one-third of adults in the United States who go online have participated in online auctions. With the interest in online auctions combined with the ability to pick up an item after winning, many people might find the option more convenient than attending a local liquidation sale.
Starting from a warehouse in Pittsburgh in 2018, M@C Discount now has 14 warehouses, with three in South Carolina — Greenville, Spartanburg and Rock Hill. The company entered the South Carolina market in March 2022 when it opened in Spartanburg.
That location had more participants in the first year than some stores in other states open for five years, which led M@C to open more South Carolina locations.
“Upstate South Carolina has embraced us from Day One,” Campbell says.
When Allen and Campbell order products, they know only how the products were placed on the truck, meaning they know if a forklift was needed or if items were able to be loaded by hand. Products can range from Apple watches to coffee machines, home vanities or lawn mowers.
For a company built around second chances in the products it sells, it was natural to extend that approach to hiring employees other companies ignore and setting up shop in empty, unused warehouse space.
“We tend to find a lot of employees that are not desirable in the job market. … They need a place to get started again,” Allen says.
