Does your city/area have a local auction? Might be worth checking out if so!

Where I live, there are at least 3 local auctions and likely more in the broader area (Calgary, Canada). What's really awesome about these auctions is that a lot of large, box stores, notably including all the local Costco's, send many returned items through local auctions instead of trying to return things to the supplier.

Costco is all about buying in bulk for low prices, and they have a broad return policy so people can return practically anything. Save for a few big ticket items like TV's, it's not worth it to Costco to try to either sort through the returned contents to make sure everything is there and not broken for someone else to buy, or to try to return things to the suppliers that they bought from in bulk. So at least where I live, Costco has agreements with local actions to sell this stuff. I've seen camping equipment from costco go through the auction in complete packaging, with nothing opened or missing. Other stores do this as well with opened returned items and some individuals sell stuff through the auction as well if they can't be bothered with selling on Facebook market and don't care too much about how much they get for their old collectibles.

I've been auctioneering for the past 3 years now and it's provided consistent savings for necessities (things like TP, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, etc. - can buy the bulk packages for cheaper than they are at Costco and way cheaper than supermarkets), a source of Christmas/birthday presents as some interesting and cool items pass through for much cheaper than you would buy them from a store (I've gotten brand new snowshoes, a Traeger smoker shelf, shoes, hiking poles, all sorts of stuff for cheaper than they sell at Costco), and at times I've done buy-and-sell for some side income (most recently, bought a $200 Breville juicer from the auction for $80, and sold it locally on FB market for $160).

Curious if others also have auctions like this where you live? If you google your city and auction, I would be surprised if nothing came up! And even better, through 2020 most the auctions I know of have gone online, so you can bid through your phone and just need to go there to pick up. The downside to that is that you don't actually get to physically check the items you are bidding on to make sure you know what your are getting, which increases the risks of buying something with pieces missing or not working (I usually avoid buying electronics from the auction for this reason, it's more risky cause auctions usually sell as is so the buyer takes on the risk of something not working).