Used office furniture is sold out of an office three ways. A buyback is an outright purchase at a discount, where the buyer carries all resale risk and you get certainty and a lower number. Consignment pays you a share when each piece sells, so you carry the timing risk and keep more of the upside. Brokerage places the inventory with end buyers for a fee, which generally produces the highest gross on a matched lot but takes the longest. Which one is right depends almost entirely on how much time you have before the space has to be empty.
You send the same inventory to three people. One offers a cheque this week. One offers seventy percent of whatever it sells for. One offers to place it and take a fee. The numbers are not close to each other.
All three can be fair. They are pricing different amounts of risk, and the risk being priced is almost entirely about time. Once that is visible the comparison becomes straightforward.
The three structures
- Buyback Someone buys the lot outright at a discount to expected resale. You get a number, a date, and no further involvement. They carry the risk that it sits in a warehouse for eight months. That risk is real and it is what the discount pays for.
- Consignment You retain title. You get paid a defined share as pieces sell. The gross is higher and the timing is not yours to control. The clause that matters is what happens to unsold inventory at a stated date.
- Brokerage The inventory is placed with end buyers, often before it leaves your floor, for a fee or a margin. Usually the highest gross on a matched lot, because an end buyer pays more than a reseller does, and usually the slowest because it needs a matching buyer.
Which one fits your timeline
| Time to lease end | Usually the right structure | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 90 days or more | Brokerage, or consignment | Enough runway to reach end buyers, who pay the most |
| 60 days | Mixed. Broker the A-grade, buyback the rest | The good inventory can still find a buyer; the rest needs certainty |
| 30 days | Buyback | You are buying certainty, and that is a legitimate thing to buy |
| Under 30 days | Buyback on what moves, donation and recycling on the rest | The resale window has closed and the priority is diversion, not recovery |
That table is the whole reason a decommission should start ninety days out rather than thirty. The furniture does not change. The structure available to you does, and each step down the table costs recovery. The full sequence is in the 90 day Bay Area decommissioning checklist.
How to read an offer
- Find out who holds title and when This is the difference between the three structures and it should be stated in one sentence. If it is not stated, that is the first question.
- Ask what happens to unsold inventory, and when On a consignment this is the whole deal. A share of sales with no end date means you may still own a warehouse of panels in March.
- Separate the recovery from the removal cost A single net number hides which half is being negotiated. Price the removal as its own line and the recovery as its own line. The same rule applies to a bid, and it is covered in writing a decommission scope of work.
- Ask who pays for the pieces that do not sell Somebody moves, stores, and eventually disposes of them. Tipping fees are charged by weight and systems furniture is heavy. Know whose line that is.
- Ask for the category breakdown An offer that values task seating, height-adjustable bases, systems furniture and casegoods as one blended number is not an offer you can evaluate or hold anyone to.
What raises the number, in every structure
The inventory decides more than the negotiation does. Three things move it, and all three are within your control if you start early enough.
- Matching A matched lot in one finish is worth considerably more than the same count in mixed models, because one buyer can take the whole thing. Mixed lots get split, and splitting costs everybody.
- Selling in place Furniture that a buyer can see installed and standing is worth more than the same furniture stacked on a pallet. It has also only been handled once by the time it arrives.
- Documented specification Manufacturer, model, year and condition, recorded per zone. Guessed inventory sells for less because a buyer discounts for their own uncertainty. Every piece that moves through us carries a RESEAT ID holding exactly that record.
The satellite office version
A small Walnut Creek or 680 corridor office closing or downsizing has a different problem from a 200,000 square foot floorplate. The lot is too small to attract a dedicated buyer on its own, which pushes it toward buyback by default and at a poor number. The move that works is consolidating it with other inventory so it reaches a buyer as part of something bigger. Response in Walnut Creek is 48 hours rather than the 24 most core Bay Area markets get, so start the conversation a little earlier there.
Have an inventory and a date? Send both through the decommission intake and we will come back with what each structure produces, rather than one number with no structure attached. Selling your office furniture covers what specific categories are worth.