Why the secondhand furniture business is booming for brands in 2025

In addition to retail giants like Amazon and Target that sell off excess furniture and returns, B-Stock works with furniture and housewares companies like Ashley, World Market, Kohler and GE. CEO Marcus Shen said more brands in the category are coming to B-Stock because they’re looking to make something “bigger than zero,” compared to what the excess inventory would earn sitting in a warehouse.

“The sales team is spending a lot more time on furniture, and we’re seeing that pipeline increase,” Shen said. “I’m not a furniture expert, but I’m starting to recognize the brands that are knocking on our door, which definitely means something is going on.”

EMarketer predicted that the U.S. resale market would hit $83.75 billion last year and about $91.6 billion by 2027. But the furniture and home goods sector, in particular, is seeing growth. B-Stock saw a 30% year-over-year increase in the number of new buyers in the furniture category last year, compared to 2023. Cort, a rental furniture company that also sells its used inventory, has seen 43% increase in traffic to its outlet platform in the past six months and 47% more unique visitors.

From a buyer’s perspective, the appeal of secondhand is evident because the inventory is likely to be priced lower than a new product and would be free of any tariff-related surcharges. In turn, there’s been a boom in estate sales and searches for duty-free vintage items through online marketplaces like Chairish. But for brands, the resale market is a chance to offload excess inventory that may otherwise be dormant in a warehouse.

Marketplaces, algorithms making resale easier for brands

Even Ikea, a company that’s spawned memes upon memes about putting together its furniture, has increased the ways it looks to resell items. It offers a Buy Back program that gives people store credit when they bring in used items that can be resold. Marti Dietz, the company’s U.S. head of sustainability, said the program is available in all U.S. stores except Houston and Brooklyn. Shoppers can drop off used furniture in exchange for an Ikea gift card. Then the items are sold via the As-Is section of the store or online marketplace that launched in 2023. Last year, those channels sold a combined 7 million items, Dietz said, which includes Ikea’s returns or excess inventory on top of resale.

While Ikea didn’t share exact numbers on how often people use Buy Back, the company accepts over 3,000 eligible products, up from 2,700 last year.

“Secondhand has always been popular,” Dietz said. “Thrift stores have been around a long time, and Ikea is just leveraging that desire that’s always been there to find the thrill of the deal.”

But part of what’s changing in this market is the technology used to calculate value and pricing has improved greatly. B-Stock has been around since 2008, but these days, it uses algorithms to help ensure brands get higher recovery rates, or the percentage of the original retail price they get from the sale. Shen said these insights are helping drive brands to the channel.

“The way they used to do this was with a phone call,” Shen said. “They had a guy with a truck who would pick it up, and they’d get some kind of fire sale price for it. So the idea of using technology to understand how the market is trading and what they should get is a level of insight that is different for them and driving them away from the old liquidating model.”

One company that’s long used B-Stock’s model for excess and returns is Wayfair. It has seen a 138% increase in sales volume from the platform since it started using it over a decade ago. Some quarters have seen recovery rates as high as 59% over Wayfair’s pre-partnership baseline, according to B-Stock. But on average, companies can recover up to 40% of the retail price on items in the auction — plus get the benefit of getting it out of the warehouse.

“Couches and sofas and sectionals take up a lot of space, so if something is really slow moving from an inventory perspective, there are times where the right financial decision is to move the inventory,” B-Stock’s Shen said. “Maybe that SKU didn’t work, maybe the season is off.  Whatever that decision, that inventory takes up so much room on a dollar-per-square-foot basis that, with furniture in particular, moving it is often operationally the right decision.”

Shoppers driving demand for furniture resale

Shen said prices for furniture sold on B-Stock this year are actually increasing as demand rises. Though it sounds counterintuitive, he said that may be because the buyers at the auction know that shoppers are seeking secondhand more than ever as tariff policy potentially drives up prices.

“If the brand new stuff is going to be more expensive, getting the stuff that actually has been sitting in the United States for a while already is probably gonna be a lot less expensive, ” he said. “So I think that has something to do with why we’re seeing a lot of prices actually move up for these brands and retailers.” 

For brands who do resale, there’s been a noticeable uptick in consumer demand. Emily Hosie, co-founder of Rebel, said the company’s seen kitchen electronics and appliances become its largest and best-selling category since launching the Home channel in March. The company was formerly known as Rebelstork and rebranded to Rebel in March while broadening its inventory from baby gear to other categories like Home.

While not specifying revenue, she said the company has seen “significant growth” from both brands looking to sell their returns and customers who are comfortable buying open-box items. “Returns commerce becomes a first choice for many consumers seeking smarter and more sustainable ways to shop,” she said.

At rental company Cort, COO Paula Newell said that the company is seeing a surge this year because people are approaching resale and used furniture with less of a treasure-hunt mindset, but more “intention” around what they want.

The company keeps a close eye on shoppers’ online conversations around furniture searches, with Google Trends showing searches for “preowned sofa” up more than 9,000% in the past month, Newell said.

This year, Cort has upped its marketing around its used sales to emphasize the speed and ease with which people can get quality, clean and value-priced furniture. Cort is doing more social marketing as well as affiliate, plus paid search and programmatic advertising. From a content perspective, it’s doing more short-form videos for platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest that show off its outlet stores.

“Secondhand is becoming the first choice in more households. Yes, affordability plays a role — especially in a year shaped by cost-of-living concerns — but what’s really changing is how people evaluate value,” she told Modern Retail. “Consumers want furniture that adapts with them, not just fills a space.” 

Newell said the biggest feedback she gets from customers is, “This doesn’t feel used” – usually because Cort’s inventory had been previously leased for things like home staging, corporate offices or model apartments. Then it is professionally cleaned and maintained before being resold, which may not be the case for more informal markets like Facebook Marketplace.  She said it matters more than ever to customers that even something bought secondhand or used is in good shape.

“For retailers, the opportunity isn’t just about resale,” she said. “As more consumers adopt this mindset, we’ll need to rethink not only what we offer but also for how long it’s built to last.”