How to sell furniture online

Published by Pearlly on 6th July 2018

Trying to sell furniture online? It needn’t be a hassle.

Selling anything online can be a daunting task if you don’t have much experience doing it – but if you learn the simple tips of the trade you will enjoy selling online whatever it is you have. Figuring out how to sell furniture online can be a real rigmarole even if you do have a bit of experience selling online. The dynamics for selling anything however are really the same no matter what you’re selling. First things first..

Finding a platform to sell furniture online :

how to sell furniture online

You’ll want to find the right place to sell. Key factors such as ‘traffic’ give importance having a steady flow of people accessing the site on a day-to-day basis. The sites pictured to the left are some of the more popular sites for selling second hand stuff on – you can check them out. Without over-stating the obvious it is worth mentioning that you are likely to get a higher price for your item on a platform that is visited by 1000 people a day compared with one that only gets 500 visitors per day.

Here are some key steps you might want to follow if this article is speaking to you :

Historical Trends :

Has your item or similar been sold online before?

Searching other classified ad sites or auction sites can tell you when exactly this item was last sold, who sold it and where. eBay has a good feature called ‘completed listings’ on their site when you’re search for an item. It allows to check what the items that either match, or are similar to yours sold for over a period of time. This can provide key insight into the levels of demand for the piece and thus give a clear indication as to how quickly your item may sell once you list it. This would be directly related to the amount that you list yours for of course, information which these completed listings will inform you about.

Writing a description :

Want to know best how to sell furniture online.. write a great description. What do we mean by this? We mean in as few words as possible tell us the following about your item:

Tell us about the condition : Is there any damage, rips, tears, discolouration, pet hair, stains, ugly marks – no matter how seemingly insignificant to you – they may not be to another – so name them.
How long has it been in use?
Where was it purchased from? Stating the original designer or brand name will do wonders for attracting buyers and grabbing that sale.
Write a few lines stating reason why you’re selling.
Don’t forget to leave out the dimensions of the item also – very key. Fewer things are more annoying than a really nice corner sofa listed online without its measurements included. Don’t be lazy – measure up!

Our friends over at Preloved have a good article about ‘how to write a great item description’ which you can look at..

Get the Price Right!

Arguably the most important factor when you’re thinking about how to sell furniture online. As we like to say over at our quarters – “You can sell anything, you’ve just got to help the individual looking for your item to locate it.”

Is that item still being sold in the shops? What’s its retail price now? That is, how much are other shops and websites selling it for now – used of course – as opposed to much you paid for it brand new. People often make the error but, it may be the case that since the time that you purchased it at the retailer – they’ve adjusted the price southward or, perhaps it’s now on sale – either way this will serve as a good basis for valuing your item.

The maths (the money) :

So the equation goes – take the value of the item at retail (£325), divide it by 100 (£3.25) then multiply it by 25 (£81.25). This will give you 25% of it’s retail value. Then take the retail value once more (£325), divide it by 100 (£3.25), then multiply that by 35 (£113.75) – sorry about the maths lesson – this will give you figures that are 25% & 35% of the item’s retail value respectively.

Here’s the same equation in diagram form:

how to sell furniture online

Thus giving you an expected resale value of between £81.25 – £113.75 on the second hand market.

The smaller number we will take as the lowest we can expect for your item, and the higher number as the top figure. That means the general lowest you can expect is 25% and the topmost 35%. These figures of course are not laws set in stone – but in most cases they prove to be true in the value of second hand furniture. To get a better understanding on the value of your furniture check out our post on How much cash for my furniture can I expect to receive?

Now last but certainly not least.. ‘how to sell furniture online’ made real EASY..

Now imagine taking everything that you just read, and giving it to someone else to do for you who will not only value your furniture, but actually offer you its cash value and collect from your address at your convenience? Does this sound real.. well it is. Pearlly will value all your high end and designer furniture on your behalf and send you that offer for your consideration. If that offer tickles your fancy we will arrange to collect your chosen furniture on a day chosen by you in exchange for instant cash.

Sell furniture online – it can’t really get any simpler than that.

Fill in our contact form now for a free quote.

There you have it!

How to sell furniture online

Trying to sell furniture online? It needn’t be a hassle.