San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Expanding business
AptDeco, a website for buying and selling used furniture, comes to the Bay Area.
Reham Fagiri wants to make the world a greener place, one piece of furniture at a time. She knows roughly 90% of used furniture winds up in a landfill. That’s why she started AptDeco, a website where patrons can buy and sell used furniture.
AptDeco handles all of the logistics that come with buying and selling used furniture, including online payments, assembly, pickup and delivery. “AptDeco stemmed from frustration and necessity,” Fagiri said. “Buying and selling used furniture online more often than not leads to scams, delivery hassles, creepy strangers and awkward cash exchanges.”
Inspired by these pain points, Fagiri launched AptDeco in 2014.
The platform allows users to shop used furniture brands or sell their own furniture to contribute to a more sustainable future. Through its white glove service, AptDeco provides pickup, assembly and delivery, scheduling and logistics and prices up to 70% less than retail.
And now it’s in the Bay Area. Already established on the East Coast, Fagiri expanded her operations to the Bay Area in June. Sameday deliveries for used furniture can be made in San Francisco, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa Clara counties.
Fagiri chose the Bay Area for a number of reasons. Not only is the region famous for its taste in highend design, San Francisco has experienced a mass exodus in recent months. It ranks fifth in top metro areas for outbound moves. More specifically, exits from San Francisco in the last nine months of 2020 jumped nearly 650% compared to 2019.
Prior to starting AptDeco, Fagiri worked at Goldman Sachs in a number of engineering and management positions. During her time there, she built various internal technology applications and managed largescale engineering teams.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from The University of Maryland, College Park and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
In this interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Fagiri talks about why she began operations on the West Coast, her vision, what items are most popular on her site and tips for listing items on her site.
Q: What types of furniture are most popular?
A: There are a number of popular categories, but sales of specific items seem to depend on the seasons. We’ve seen a large uptick in the purchase of desks and office equipment since more people started
working from home during the pandemic. But we also have a large selection of dressers, shelves, beds, nightstands, sideboards, tables and more. Q: How do you manage inventory?
A: That’s the beauty of our business. We don’t manage any inventory. Everything is listed by seller. When it sells, our delivery team simply comes and picks it up.
We don’t pick up the inventory until it sells, so we don’t have any warehouses or anything like that.
Items sell on average in less than 10 days, so there’s no need to warehouse things ahead of time. We’ve eliminated that need and that overhead completely.
Q: Do you have any tips for selling furniture on AptDeco? A: The more information you can provide, the better. Buyers know they are buying used, so the key is being honest and telling the story of why you are selling.
And photos are crucial. Take lots of photos. Take them from eye level. Remove clutter. Photograph in a brightly lit room to show the piece in its best light. And if you don’t know what to price it for, we have a pricing tool that suggests pricing. This empowers sellers to make better decisions.
Q: How do you ensure that what the seller is posting is in usable condition and worthy of sale?
A: We have an inhouse curation team that reviews everything. They make sure it has all the important information and will even edit the photos.
It’s important to remember that you’re posting an advertisement. As a seller, you have full control over the listing.
Then, at the time of pickup, our team is trained to inspect and make sure it’s the same dimensions and condition as described online. They make sure it’s as advertised. The moving team will notify the buyer if there are any issues, and then the buyer can decide whether they want to keep it or not.
Q: How many pieces can you move in an average day, and how big is your fleet?
A: We just launched in San Francisco, but I’m anticipating we’ll do anywhere between 200 to 500 deliveries per day. By the end of this year in the Bay Area, we’ll have about 10 to 15 vans.
Q: What makes AptDeco unique?
A: The logistics aspect of our business is compelling. Our delivery fees are lowest you’ll find anywhere, and it all starts with our infrastructure, software and operations. We’ve been working on software since the beginning. We initially started with outsourcing, but soon learned we could do it better, faster and cheaper around 2016 by doing it inhouse. We’ve built a very impressive set of software that other companies are looking to power their systems as well.
But one thing that really separates us is how fast we deliver. We pick up and deliver when items get sold. When you buy from a furniture store, you get a broad time window. Any furniture company will say this will be delivered sometime next week between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Since we are able to do things sameday, we’re able to pass the savings along to customers.
Q: How many employees do you have in the Bay Area?
A: We’re actively hiring 20 to 30 local employees in the San Francisco area in 2021, with plans to double that by 2022.