Veeren buys truckloads of pallets. The pallets are typically made up of overstocked or returned items from retail chains like Amazon, Target, and Dollar General. Each pallet is about five to six feet tall and around three feet long and wide, although sizes can vary depending on where the pallet comes from.

Veeren organizes the pallets in his warehouse and resells them to customers.

Veeren’s business is called Mitten Liquidation. He runs it with the help of his mom, Alex Veeren, and her boyfriend, Archie Hill, out of a warehouse in Hillman.

Alex and Archie do a lot of the moving around, sorting, and regular retail store tasks while Veeren works more on the management end, organizing truckloads and managing finances.

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Veeren sells pallets full of toys. These kinds of pallets often come from Target.

Veeren’s wife, Chelsea, also frequents the warehouse along with her and Veeren’s two young sons, Roman and Atlas.

Veeren was born in the United States but was raised in the Netherlands until he was around 10 years old since his dad was from the Netherlands.

Veeren’s interest in pallet liquidation started with YouTube, he said. He watched videos of people buying and selling pallets and went down the rabbit hole from there.

“I thought it was pretty cool, and we did it a few times with family,” Veeren said.

They buy pallets by the truckload.

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Veeren’s sons, Roman and Atlas, like exploring the warehouse when they visit.

“Sometimes we buy trucks that are specifically just Amazon products like Amazon returns or overstock items or whatever,” Veeren said.

Archie and Alex were unloading a truck at the time, full of pallets with tools.

“This is mostly Amazon, either returns or undeliverables,” Veeren said about the truck. “Just tools that got mailed out that the sender was never able to actually get or pick up the package so it got sent back.”

“But every truckload is different, we get truckloads from almost anywhere: Walmart, or Target, or Amazon,” Veeren said.

Buying a pallet is always a bit of a gamble, Veeren said. You don’t know for sure what you’re getting, especially if an item is a return. Some pallets are wrapped in clear plastic and a customer can see the packaging. Other times, items are packed in cardboard boxes with no indication of what’s inside.

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Veeren separates some pallets into individual items and puts price tags on them. Items are at 40 to 50% retail value.

“(A box) will say kitchen towels, but it’s not kitchen towels, it’s something else,” Veeren said.

One person found a brand new iPhone in an Amazon mystery box. Tool pallets often come with high-quality brands, like Milwaukee.

Veeren walked inside his warehouse and pointed out a pallet from Dollar General with overstocks.

He said a lot of people like the Dollar General pallets because they often get cosmetic products, health products, or medicine at a lower price than retail value.

In a way, Mitten Liquidation is like a business that can help other businesses. Many customers who buy pallets resell the items on Facebook marketplace or elsewhere at retail value to turn a profit.

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Amazon mystery boxes are popular with customers. Some people have ‘mystery box parties’ where they get together, open the boxes, and trade items. Shown is an example of what someone might find in a mystery box.

“There’s a local lady out here that has a Hillman buy-sell group with a bunch of local people from Hillman that buy and sell with each other, so they turn it into a living,” Veeren said.

“It’s actually pretty profitable. You actually make more money buying the pallets, breaking them down, and selling them than you do selling the pallets from the trucks,” Veeren continued.

Pallets are stacked with boxes reaching the height of an average adult, and some even touch the ceiling. The prices on some of the pallets in stock were $525, $850, and $559.

Chelsea came into the warehouse with her and Veeren’s kids, Roman and Atlas.

“They have the most fun here,” Veeren said, laughing. “It’s something new to them every time. They get to have a lot of fun.”

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Cole Veeren takes a box out of the truck that arrived in the morning.

Veeren hopes to be able to pass down the business once his kids are older.

“That’s the goal,” he said. “We’re trying to build something so that, as they get older, they can kind of come into the fold, and they can start working at it … they can have something to be productive and not get distracted with things they shouldn’t be distracted with.”

Before starting Mitten Liquidation, Veeren was a software developer and had worked in other jobs as well.

“I’ve done everything from climbing cell phone towers to all kinds of weird stuff,” Veeren said.

When asked whether the business has given him more time to spend with his family, he said yes and no.

“It takes a little bit of effort as far as having to do all of this,” he said. “It takes time and effort and energy to actually build all this and do it all, but we’re doing it as a family together, so I wouldn’t have it really any other way.”

“I’ve worked a lot of nine-to-fives in my life,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine doing that now. I enjoy being able to spend time with my family, and doing a family business gives us the freedom to really do it all together.”

In the back room of the warehouse, some pallet items are separated out, and people can buy items individually. He keeps prices at 40% to 50% of an item’s retail value. Veeren also has a donation bin where people can put items from pallets that they don’t want, to give out for free.

If items go unsold for several weeks, they send them to places like Goodwill.

“We donate what we can,” Veeren said.

He’s trying to work out something with the foodbank so when he brings in trucks with pallets of food and drinks, he can donate it to them.

With their low prices, pallets can help people afford items that they otherwise would not be able to.

“These days, everything is expensive,” Veeren said. “Buying stuff new is not an option for a lot of people.”

“The whole goal of this is to help the community as much as we can,” he said.

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Archie Hill, Alex Veeren’s boyfriend, sorts pallets that just came off the truck.

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg A pallet of Amazon mystery boxes. Veeren sells each individual box for $45, or the whole pallet for $850.

News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Alex Veeren, Cole Veeren’s mom, inside the truck.

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