Furniture reselling is weird territory. The market’s massive – everyone needs furniture, secondhand is socially acceptable now rather than embarrassing, and Facebook Marketplace means you can reach thousands of potential buyers from your phone. But actually making consistent money rather than just shifting stock requires sorting out delivery logistics that don’t destroy your margins.
Too many people get into furniture reselling thinking the hard part is finding stock or making sales. Turns out the bit that actually determines whether you’re profitable or just working for free is how much delivery costs relative to what you can charge. Get that wrong and you’re busy but broke. Get it right and there’s decent money in what looks like simple buying and selling.
Why Furniture Delivery Isn’t Like Normal E-Commerce
Furniture is uniquely awkward for online selling. Every piece is different size, weight, and fragility. A solid oak dining table and a flatpack bookshelf both count as furniture but need completely different handling. You can’t standardise delivery like you can with clothes or electronics where everything fits into predictable boxes with known weights.
The value-to-weight ratio works against you compared to most products. Electronics are expensive and relatively light. Furniture is cheap per kilo but heavy and bulky. You might make £60 profit on a chest of drawers that costs £40 to deliver, whereas someone selling phones makes £200 on something that posts for £5. The delivery cost as percentage of sale price kills margins fast if you’re not careful.
Customer expectations around furniture delivery are all over the place because there’s no standard. Some people expect white glove service – carried upstairs, assembled, packaging removed. Others are happy with kerbside drop-off. Your competitors offer different things at different prices, so there’s no clear market norm you can just copy. You need to figure out what delivery level makes economic sense for your business model.
The buy-local versus delivered market split affects strategy significantly. Lots of furniture sells locally with collection because buyers with vans want bargains and don’t mind picking up. This is your competition – someone who doesn’t need to factor delivery costs can undercut your prices. You need advantages that make delivery worth paying for, which usually means selection, convenience, or quality beyond what local-only sellers provide.
The Real Costs Beyond the Courier Quote
Your time arranging delivery and handling complications is the first hidden cost. Getting quotes, booking couriers, coordinating collection and delivery, dealing with problems – this takes hours per piece if you’re doing it properly. Even at £10/hour for your time, that’s real cost eating into margins. Multiply by 20 pieces per month and you’re working significantly for money you’re not accounting for.
Failed deliveries because customers aren’t available or furniture won’t fit through doors happen constantly. You’re paying for delivery twice, storing the item in the meantime, dealing with frustrated buyers who blame you even when it’s not your fault. Budget 5-10% of deliveries failing initially and need reattempting. If you’re not factoring this into pricing, that’s 5-10% margin disappearing.
Damage in transit is expensive even when insured. Say you sell a sideboard for £300, it arrives damaged, customer rejects it, you claim on insurance. You get the money back eventually, but you’ve lost the sale, have a damaged item worth less than before, spent time on claims, and annoyed a customer who might have bought more pieces. The financial cost gets covered but opportunity cost and hassle cost don’t.
Returns for any reason mean paying delivery both ways plus your time dealing with everything. Furniture has higher return rates than people expect – buyer doesn’t like the colour in their room, it doesn’t match their existing stuff, partner vetoes it when it arrives. You eat delivery costs plus relisting time, and now you’re trying to sell second-time what didn’t sell first time.
Different Delivery Models and What They Actually Cost
Collection-only seems like it avoids delivery costs but limits your market to people with appropriate vehicles willing to collect. Maybe 30% of potential buyers, being generous. You’re trading delivery hassle for dramatically reduced audience. Works fine if you’re selling high-end pieces where local demand is sufficient, problematic if you need volume to make money.
Pallet networks are cheap for large items going long distances but the service is terrible for furniture. Multi-day delivery, kerbside only, no tracking worth mentioning, high damage rates. Suitable for trade customers buying stock who understand the compromises. Terrible for retail customers expecting reasonable service. Use pallets for restocking yourself, not for customer deliveries unless you want complaints.
Traditional furniture delivery services with two-man teams charge £80-150 depending on distance. They’ll carry items in, basic assembly sometimes, remove packaging. This is what customers expect when buying furniture, but it’s expensive relative to most secondhand prices. A £200 dining table with £100 delivery becomes £300 total, which kills the secondhand value proposition versus buying new with free delivery.
Services similar to a Man with a van London setup often provide the perfect balance of affordability and professionalism, especially for mid-sized furniture deliveries. One person rather than two-man team usually, but proper equipment and direct communication. Using a furniture courier where local drivers help means competitive pricing while maintaining service standards above pallet networks. Costs typically £40-80 for most UK mainland deliveries.
Building Delivery Into Your Pricing Strategy
Local delivery included makes sense for high-margin items within your immediate area. Charge £250 for a desk worth £200, include delivery within 15 miles. You keep the sale local, avoid complicated logistics, build reputation as full-service seller. Beyond certain radius or for lower-value items, this stops being economical.
Delivery as optional extra at cost lets customers choose. List at £200 plus delivery £60-80 depending on location. Some collect and save the delivery fee, others pay for convenience. You’re transparent about costs and customers feel like they’re choosing rather than being forced to pay. Requires clear communication upfront so nobody’s surprised at checkout.
Free delivery over threshold encourages larger purchases and improves unit economics. Buy one chair, pay delivery. Buy dining table and six chairs, free delivery. Your margin on the larger sale absorbs delivery cost, customer feels like they got a deal, you move more stock per transaction. Works when your average transaction value is typically below the threshold you set.
Geographic pricing reflects actual delivery costs rather than subsidising distant customers at expense of local ones. Within 20 miles one price, 20-50 miles higher price, beyond 50 miles quote individually. Prevents situations where someone in Cornwall gets subsidised delivery while someone 10 miles away pays the same despite totally different costs.
What Actually Works for Different Furniture Types
Flatpack and lightweight items can go through standard couriers economically. Small bookcases, bedside tables, desk chairs – these fit courier size and weight limits with reasonable costs. You’re competing more with retail here so delivery needs to be efficient and cheap. Standard pallet network or courier account makes sense for volume of small items.
Mid-size solid furniture like dining chairs, small tables, chests of drawers need proper handling but aren’t enormous. Single-person delivery with van and appropriate equipment works fine. This is where marketplace platforms excel – jobs are small enough for one capable driver but need more care than standard courier provides. Pricing sweet spot where delivery costs don’t dominate sale price.
Large pieces – sofas, wardrobes, dining tables, big sideboards – require two-person delivery really, or very experienced single driver with specific equipment. These are your highest-value items typically so can bear higher delivery costs proportionally. But you need reliable service because damage to expensive items hurts more than damage to cheap stuff.
Specialist items like antiques, mid-century designer pieces, or fragile glass furniture need specialist handling. This isn’t place to cut costs on delivery. Use experienced furniture movers who understand value and fragility. Charge properly for delivery because customers buying £1000+ items care more about safe arrival than saving £40 on courier costs.
Systems That Make Delivery Manageable at Scale
Template listings with clear delivery terms prevent repetitive questions and disputes. Every listing states your delivery policy, costs for different zones, what’s included and what’s not. Customer knows before enquiring what delivery situation is. Saves you explaining same thing fifty times per week.
Relationships with handful of reliable drivers means you’re not starting from zero every delivery. Find two or three drivers who do good work, use them repeatedly, they learn what standards you expect. Repeat business often means better rates and service. They know how you operate, you know they’re reliable.
Batch deliveries when possible reduce per-item costs. If you’ve got three pieces going to Midlands same week, coordinate one trip rather than three separate deliveries. Requires planning ahead rather than immediate dispatch, but economics are much better. Communicate longer lead times to customers if you’re batching.
Proper packaging standards that you apply consistently reduce damage rates dramatically. Know how you’re protecting corners on tables, wrapping glass, stabilising drawers in chests. Make it routine rather than improvising each time. Buy packaging materials in bulk. Time spent packaging properly is cheaper than dealing with damage claims.
The Profitable Reseller Mindset
Factor delivery into buying decisions, not just selling decisions. That amazing wardrobe for £50 at auction stops being amazing when you realise delivery to customer will cost £100 and you can only sell it for £200. Your actual margin is £50 not £150. Sometimes pieces aren’t worth buying because delivery economics don’t work even if purchase price is great.
Understand your geographic sweet spot and focus there. If you’re in Manchester, you can probably sell profitably throughout the North with reasonable delivery costs. Trying to sell furniture to Cornwall regularly means either eating delivery costs or pricing yourself out of market. Know where your economics work and target those areas.
Build volume with pieces that have good delivery-cost-to-sale-price ratios. Rather than selling one £800 sofa monthly with £120 delivery, sell twenty £150 items with £50 delivery. Your time is more leveraged, you’re less dependent on individual high-value sales, overall revenue is better even if individual margins are lower.
Be honest about what delivery level you provide rather than over-promising. If you’re doing basic delivery not white glove service, set expectations properly. Customers who want premium service will pay for it; customers who want cheap furniture understand basic delivery. Misaligned expectations cause all the problems and bad reviews.
Where This Is Actually Heading
Marketplace consolidation means fewer but better platforms for both finding stock and arranging delivery. Rather than scattered Facebook groups and multiple courier services, things concentrate around platforms that actually work. This reduces time spent shopping around but also means understanding which platforms serve your needs.
Customer expectations keep rising as retailers like IKEA and Wayfair normalise good delivery service. Secondhand furniture sellers can’t completely match retail delivery standards on tight margins, but you need to meet minimum acceptable levels. Basic tracking, reasonable time windows, professional drivers – these aren’t premium anymore, they’re baseline.
Delivery costs likely increase as fuel costs and driver wages rise, but this affects everyone equally. Competitive advantage comes from efficiency in how you handle delivery rather than just finding cheapest option. Being organised, batching effectively, building relationships – this matters more than finding rock-bottom courier rates.
Successful furniture resellers in 2025 treat delivery as core part of the business model, not afterthought. They’ve got systems, relationships, clear processes that make delivery repeatable and profitable. Amateur sellers still view every delivery as individual problem to solve. That difference in approach determines who scales profitably and who stays small wondering why they’re working hard for little money.
Making This Actually Work
Track your real delivery costs including your time, failed deliveries, damage, and opportunity cost. Most resellers only track courier fees and wonder why they’re not profitable. Full-cost accounting shows where money actually goes and where you need to improve.
Test different delivery models on different furniture types rather than one-size-fits-all approach. Maybe collection-only works for cheap bulky items, marketplace drivers work for mid-range pieces, traditional services suit high-end furniture. Match delivery method to item characteristics and margins.
Build delivery costs into purchase decisions before you buy stock. Calculate backwards from realistic sale price minus acceptable margin minus actual delivery costs equals maximum you can pay for item. Discipline about this prevents buying things that can’t be sold profitably.
Accept that delivery logistics is part of furniture reselling, not unfortunate necessity to minimise. It’s where the actual business skill comes in beyond just finding good stock. Master delivery economics and you’ve got sustainable advantage over sellers who are winging it.
