Should discontinued crusty old products (but still new stock) be listed on site?

[Kevin_McLeish]

Some may think this is not good to do for us, because it tarnishes the image of the site as being: "These guys are pawing off old stuff and not carrying up to date products.  It would be a waste of our time to try to sell it off of our site." ... even though 89% of are items are new and up to date products.

(My feelings on this would be the opposite: I want all the old crusty stuff up there because it makes it available to a much bigger market area.... called "The World".  lol! To me, if it's not moving in our market, it means we bought the wrong item for our market and we need to offer it up to "The World".  Maybe I'm way off here, but are there any other spins on thoughts on this? )  Thanks, Kevin

[EGOL]

If you have been in biz for any amount of time you get returned items.  REI has a separate store for their returned items (extremely interesting article here).  So do lots of other very high end businesses.  But they frequently sell them in dedicated stores or in outlet shops.

When I have an item that was purchased and returned.  I check it out to see if it is still good, then list it on ebay as "used" - and they sell immediately.  I also just took a lot of stuff to my local Goodwill store.  It was not selling and I just wanted to "get it out of here".

I do have a "clearance" page on one of my sites, just to give deep discount on some items that I want to move - but if I get impatient they go to Goodwill.