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Disney Petit
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| 5 min read

LiquiDonate Is Turning Retail Waste Into Community Impact Through Sustainable Donations

By Brent W. Peterson

What happens to excess inventory and unsellable returns.

Host Brent Peterson sits down with returning guest Disney Petit, the Founder and CEO of LiquiDonate, to discuss how her company’s software platform is transforming the way retailers handle surplus goods. Rather than sending products to landfills or costly liquidation channels, Disney explains how LiquiDonate matches excess inventory with nonprofits and schools that actually need these items. Our conversation covers everything from big and bulky donation logistics to upcoming Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation, tariff impacts on retail, and how sustainability doesn’t have to mean spending more.

Key Takeaways

  1. LiquiDonate now handles big and bulky items like mattresses and furniture. The company built a matching algorithm that coordinates pickup from customers’ homes and delivers directly to a nearby nonprofit, eliminating warehousing fees entirely.
  2. The Warehouse Direct product enables retailers and 3PLs to donate by the box, pallet, or truckload. Retailers can upload any excess inventory and get it donated in less than a week.
  3. Donation is often cheaper than traditional return processing. Traditionally, the average return costs a retailer $15 in lost revenue and logistics expenses. However, returns processed through LiquiDonate cost only $0.06 on average.
  4. LiquiDonate has donated over 12 million items that otherwise would have ended up in landfills, with more than 4,000 nonprofits registered to accept donations through the platform.
  5. EPR and Digital Product Passport (DPP) legislation is coming. The EU will enforce it in summer 2026, and California follows in 2027, putting the onus of end-of-life product responsibility squarely on producers.
  6. Tariff-driven overordering is creating a surge of donation-eligible inventory. Retailers that panic-purchased during tariff uncertainty are now sitting on surplus stock that LiquiDonate can redirect to communities in need.
  7. The resale market may not be the sustainability solution many assume it is. Disney shared research suggesting that secondhand shopping doesn’t replace new purchases but rather supplements them.

About Disney Petit

Disney Petit is a social impact entrepreneur, retail supply chain expert, and environmental activist. She is the founder of LiquiDonate, a software solution that matches excess inventory from retailers with local nonprofits and schools. Disney was also employee 15 at Postmates and built their customer service, sales, and partner programs. She won TIME Magazine Invention of the year twice. First, in 2021 for Bento, an SMS-based software that matches excess food from restaurants to people with food insecurity; and second, in 2025 for LiquiDonate. She is based in Oakland, CA.

Summary

Disney explains LiquiDonate’s core mission: working with retailers and brands to donate excess inventory and unsellable returns to nonprofits and schools. She described how the company has expanded into three product areas since her last appearance on the show, with particular focus on big and bulky items and the new Warehouse Direct product.

Disney addressed the challenge of mattress returns, where “bed in a box” products ship compressed but can’t be repackaged once opened. Many retailers currently tell customers to keep the product or donate it locally, which creates a burden. LiquiDonate’s solution presents customers with a pickup scheduler during the return process, coordinating direct delivery to a matched nonprofit. As Disney put it, “We knew that we had to make it easier than doing anything else in order for the customer to really opt into this process.”

The Warehouse Direct product allows retailers and 3PLs to upload products by box, pallet, or truckload. The platform includes an AI photo recognition tool for unknown inventory and coordinates brokerage services for freight logistics. Disney then challenged the liquidation model, noting that her company’s name was “born from the idea of challenging the traditional liquidation paradigm where people were taking the pennies on the dollar they could get.”

On sustainability metrics, Disney shared that LiquiDonate’s software reduces the transit distance of physical goods by 90% on average. For one small retailer, that meant 3 million fewer miles in the transit process. Looking ahead, Disney expressed excitement about EPR and DPP legislation, stating, “The onus has for far too long been on the consumer.” She also noted that tariff-driven overordering is pushing brand-new products into the donation pipeline.

Disney closed with a personal call to action: ask your friends for things they might have in excess before buying new. She texted her group chats for spare headphones and ended up with eight pairs, one for herself and seven to donate.

Final Thoughts

This episode of Talk Commerce makes a strong case that sustainability and profitability can work together. Disney Petit and LiquiDonate are proving that retailers can reduce costs, support communities, and keep products out of landfills through a single platform. LiquiDonate was named TIME’s 2025 Best Invention for redefining retail returns with circular logistics software, and the momentum is only building. With EPR legislation on the horizon and tariff-driven surplus flooding warehouses, the timing for donation-based solutions has never been stronger.

So here’s a question worth considering: when it comes to your excess inventory and returns, are you ready to stop liquidating and start LiquiDonating?

Connect with Disney Petit or LiquiDonate

This has been produced in cooperation with Content Cucumber
https://www.contentcucumber.com/

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Tags

Circular Economy climate tech digital product passport Disney Petit EPR legislation excess inventory LiquiDonate nonprofit donations retail returns Retail sustainability Reverse logistics sustainable donations tariffs and retail waste reduction

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Brent W. Peterson

Brent W. Peterson

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