Turning clutter into currency: Your guide on how to sell used furniture online
Are you ready to get rid of that old sofa you’ve had for years? Or perhaps you’re changing your décor and colour schemes, and your furniture no longer matches. Maybe you’re moving house or downsizing and you need to get rid of that furniture you can’t bring with you There is an abundance of reasons why people want to fine-tune how to sell their used furniture online. And there is loads of it online, so it’s essential to make your furniture look the best it can.
Selling furniture online can also be a lucrative side hustle if you can capitalise on people selling worse-for-wear furniture cheap, upcycle it to add value and sell it on. This is colloquially known as “furniture flipping”.
Prior to listing your furniture online
It may seem easy to just quickly snap a few pics and upload them online. However, if you hold your horses and do some prep work first, you can get more money for your used furniture. Have a think about your description too, a good, detailed description can give buyers better piece of mind and increase sale chances too.
Cleaning your furniture pieces
Make sure to do any cleaning on your furniture as if you can sell your furniture nice and clean people will pay a higher price – you can get over £100 extra by simply scrubbing up your furniture! If there is a mark or stain on it, people will be wary as they will be worried that they won’t be able to get it out. You’ll find a lot of people want a lot for a little money, so even a small mark could put them off. It doesn’t matter if it was £5,000 new!
If the furniture needs any repairing done and it’s something you can do without too much expense, then it’s worth doing that; damage is something that will put people off as they might not be able to repair it themselves. Potential buyers could be worried it isn’t repairable at all when it may just be as simple as putting a new screw in!
Taking quality photos
Once you’ve got your furniture looking the best you can, it is time to take photos. This is extremely important to selling your furniture online. It’s the photos that sell the furniture at the end of the day.
You need good lighting, plenty of photos, good angles and to make sure that your photos look crisp. The better your photos, the more it will stand out and the better it looks. No one wants to buy furniture they can barely see – if you take bad-quality photos it can also be viewed like you are trying to hide marks, stains, damage etc.
Also, think about what is surrounding the furniture, if the house looks tidy then people will think it’s coming from a clean home. If it looks messy, then this can be an off-putter for potential buyers too.
Where to sell used furniture online
There are thousands of platforms to sell used furniture online; the most successful one in the UK is Facebook by far, where the market is quick and items go fast. Another good one is Gumtree but Facebook pips it with speed and the number of users on the marketplace.
Places to sell include:
Writing your description
Make sure to write an accurate description; the more detail you put in makes you seem more genuine, which potential buyers will appreciate. There is no need to lie about the furniture and say it’s perfect as it is used.
If there is anything the buyer should know about, be honest, take a photo and put it in the description. You don’t need to take photos of every small mark as these are used items and it has to be expected. However, if there is anything significant or any damage that may affect the overall value, it needs to be in the description, and you should take a photo too.
Pricing your item
It is important to price your items correctly. If you want to sell your item quickly then don’t put a high price on it as fewer people will be interested and people will want to view it. If you do want your item gone really quickly, it’s worth undercutting the competition – see what other similar items are selling for and undercut them slightly.
If you’ve got time and you are happy to wait until you find someone who wants to pay the price you want, then these are happy days. You still want to ensure you’re not pricing too high, but you can always price high and if there is no interest at all then start to reduce your price.
Offering transportation
A lot of people struggle to buy used furniture because they can’t transport it. If you can offer it, then that’s great and you can even charge an extra to deliver it and make a bit extra. If you can’t then this can be an issue for a lot of people.
However, you can offer that you can arrange a man and van furniture courier. If you use a company like VanaMango, who can pick up and drop off anywhere in the UK, then you can open up your potential selling audience. You can even put in the details for them and then send them a link to the website booking page for them to pay. This is great as many people are wary about paying for things upfront.
VanaMango specialises in moving heavy furniture and packing it safely. So there’s no need for the buyer to worry about the item being shipped safely and you can pass this reassurance onto the buyer. If you want to learn more about the costs involved take a gander at our full furniture courier price breakdown.