Bargain hunters can pick up entire pallets of returned goods from retailers like Amazon at massive discounts - with one small snag.
The way it works is that Amazon bundles up and resells items returned to it by consumers.
These can be returned because they're defective, not wanted or for any other reason.
Rather than relist them, Amazon and other retailers mix similar items together and sells them on, sometimes by the truckload.
In the UK, the snag is that most of these pallets and lorryloads have to be bought by businesses, not consumers.
They then resell the goods to smaller businesses like shops, market traders and auctioneers - but being a car boot salesperson or eBayer can count too.
These items fall into broad categories like ' electrical ', 'clothing and footwear' or, for a real lottery, 'miscellaneous'.
An electrical pallet might contain a random assortment of toasters, kettles, microwaves and so on.
But there are some serious bargains on offer.
For example, a pallet of electrical items originally sold for £1,682.67 is on sale at Gem Wholesale for £370.19 - 22% of the original price.
A small pallet of toys sold to customers for £1,851.77 is on sale for £370.35, or 20% of what the goods first sold for.
How to buy a return pallet
There aren't many options to buy returns pallets from Amazon in the UK.
The options that do exist ask that you are some sort of business, but that includes smaller traders too.
Two pallet resellers are Mart Hill and Gem Wholesale, while Bstock just handles Amazon return pallets.
What are the risks?
Firstly you can have little to no idea what's in the pallet you buy - though some give a rough breakdown.
However, these breakdowns might not give the full picture.
For example, one 'miscellaneous' pallet lists one of the items as a '6 litre blue mini fridge' - but not the manufacturer.
Other listings give no clues away at all, like a pallet containing a mystery 'medium square with travel - grey'.
There is also little guarantee what condition everything in the pallet is, or if it is good enough to be resold.
If you do buy a pallet with a lot of duff items, you have no return rights.
How to get discounted Amazon items as a consumer
Amazon has a little-known part of its website where some of the biggest discounts can be found, and anyone can buy them - you don't have to be a business.
Amazon has an outlet page which lists thousands of discounted and clearance items, including electronics, clothing, toys and more.
Not many shoppers know about the page, but it is where some of the best deals can be found.
Discounts of up to 83% are available on many items.
It is even possible to search by category on the outlet page, for example 'electronics', or by the size of the discount on offer.
You can view the entire Amazon Outlet range here .
