Singapore Expats

Hello fellow Expats,

I have some high end wooden furniture from my stay in Singapore. I am looking to sell them at reasonable prices prior to my departure. Platforms such as Facebook, Carousell and Gumtree have generated poor responses either potential buyers making ridiculous offers or not showing up after committing. I am not keen to pay for ads I list since as it is their selling price is very low. Any other suggestions?

https://classifieds.singaporeexpats.com/ for starters. Marketplace on FB is another.

Hello SundayMorningStaple,

As mentioned above, Facebook seems to be one of those platforms where potential buyers make ridiculously low offers so I am not keen to use that.

I notice response on this platform for second hand furniture seems less, some posts remain from 2005. Any other suggestions?

Unfortunately this is a throw away economy and has a poor market for most second hand goods. I have found however that buyers from JB tend to be keener on second hand goods and sometimes come into Singapore if the price is right.

In the "old days" you could put up notices at certain malls and in cold storage shops - I haven't seen any for a long time. That was a reasonable way to sell actually and how I sold a lot of stuff in 1995 the last time I left.

Advertise at your work place as well. Also try craigslist. I did sell some stuff on the CL back a few years ago and I just looked again - they have what looks like a relatively fresh and curate listing section for furniture even if the rest of CL sucks.

suzanne42 wrote: ↑

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 4:48 pm

Hello SundayMorningStaple,

As mentioned above, Facebook seems to be one of those platforms where potential buyers make ridiculously low offers so I am not keen to use that.

I've sold some stuff on both MarketPlace and on Carousell. I always put a disclaimer that lowballers will be ignored. Occasionally someone will try, but I just ignore it as I said I would. You have to remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

If you've got friends with connections into the American Club, their bulletin board can be quite useful.

Thank you for the suggestions. I will retry posting on Craiglist (Last time no one responded after weeks of waiting so I gave up)

Unfortunately I have no contacts at the American Club

I had been using Faceboook Marketplace and Carousell for a long time but the poor responses there forced me to seek out better alternatives.

I would add that the number of second hand furniture stores has also really plummeted in the last decade. There used to be a few around my area and they are ALL gone.

Summary: You face a problem faced by many expats who are moving off the island... you can't even give the furniture away. I know people who have had to pay the junk man to take nice furniture out of a rent house because no one would buy it.

If this is really high end stuff, you might want to consider shipping it, if it's an addon in a container. You may be able to recoup the shipping costs on the other end.

Otherwise, it's kind of an "Oh, shit" situation... watching nice and very serviceable furniture trashed.

There's a market and business idea here somewhere. Uber Furniture.

Does Uber Furniture buy back high end furniture? Googling did not provide me relevant results.

No it's just an idea. Not a real thing. Apologies.

I see. Seems like channels for used furniture are really poor. Looks like I might have to depend on platforms like Facebook and Carousell after all.

There are a row of second hand furniture shops at the far side of the old Bukit Timah Race Track. It may be worth trying there (with some pictures of the items) and see what they think. The location is hard to explain so look at this link (it starts at one end in a series of run down buildings and goes along for about 100 m. Each section is run independently). It's a hoot!

https://goo.gl/maps/c2MYzPaspinr2k6X7