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Elfie PH

How to Start Your Furniture Flipping Business

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If you are an avid do-it-yourselfer with an eye for great interior design, furniture flipping might just be the side hustle you are looking for. For one, it’s a great way to earn extra income and exercise your creativity. For another, it requires relatively little capital to get started. Aspiring furniture flippers in the Philippines can simply post their refurbished furniture on buy and sell online platforms like LookingFour or on social media at little to no cost.

Looking for a rewarding side gig that utilizes your DIY skills? Here’s everything you need to know about the business of furniture flipping and how to earn off of it from a website like LookingFour.

What Is Furniture Flipping?

Furniture flipping is all about turning old or decrepit furniture such as chairs, tables, and cabinets into something new that would fit today’s interior design market. While furniture flipping has been around for as long as flea markets have also been around, social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok made it into a mainstream trend.

The sheer number of people filming their furniture flips made it seem like anybody could do it. However, the reality is that it takes dedication, talent, and skills to transform a furniture flipping hobby into a thriving business.

5 Steps to Starting Your Own Furniture Flipping Business

Like any other business venture that you would want to bear fruit, you have to be purposeful if you want to make money off of furniture flipping. To that end, here are a few suggestions for getting a furniture flipping business off the ground:

Study the Furniture Flipping Market

The first thing you should do as an aspiring furniture flipping entrepreneur is to research the subject. Even if you’ve already flipped furniture before, there may be a lot of information about the market that you still need to learn. For example, what tools do you need to carry out a variety of furniture flipping jobs in the long run? What are the newest and hottest trends in furniture design? How much profit can you expect from each type of flip? How do you send finished pieces to customers, especially if they don’t live in a major city in the Philippines?

You should also find out what other successful furniture flippers did to gain success, and then learn from their experiences. Their insights into the business are invaluable to a beginner since seasoned furniture flippers have already been through one of the hardest parts of the journey.

Take It Easy on Your First Few Flips

If you’re just starting out, it’s better to flip furniture with little to no damage. You’ll want to hone your furniture repair skills gradually, so don’t immediately take on gouged or severely damaged pieces that would be incredibly difficult to repair.

Besides, it can also be quite motivating for you if you can quickly finish your first projects and then sell them for a profit. Go this route to build both your repair skills and your confidence.

Invest in High-Quality Tools

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While you don’t have to have a complete set of carpentry tools for furniture flipping in the beginning, it pays to invest in high-quality essential tools such as an orbital sander, screwdriver, adjustable wrench, hex keys, spring clamps, and wood scraper. Since you’ll use these items for multiple projects, you don’t want to have them breaking all the time, costing you extra money and energy.

Choose Furniture with Good Bones

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Once you get the hang of repairing used furniture, you can set your sights on choosing pieces that may have some damage but still have good bones (i.e. great potential). That said, you still have to consider the condition of the furniture to see if you can flip it for a profit. Here’s how to determine whether your furniture has good bones and is worth flipping:

  • Solid construction. Check the material of the furniture to see if it’s made of solid wood. Furniture made from these materials are easier to repair and flip. They are also in demand because they are durable and can last for over a lifetime. You can usually tell by the weight of the furniture if it’s made of solid wood, for example by its heavier frame. Conversely, stay away from lightweight furniture made from particle board and veneer. These are usually not worth refinishing or repairing because they usually fall apart quite easily.
  • Superb joinery. Another feature to look for is the furniture’s joinery, or how separate wooden pieces were held together. Some of the most sought-after joineries are the dovetailed joints or mortise-tenon joints. These are some of the strongest joint constructions in furniture and telltale signs that you’re looking at premium-quality items.
  • Clean lines. You would have more luck selling furniture with simple and clean lines rather than an ornately decorated piece. Nowadays, the furniture trend includes vintage touches from the ’60s and ’70s, which will be easier to achieve if you have simpler and cleaner lines to work with.

Source Pieces at Bargain Prices

While it’s important to find high-quality furniture pieces, it’s equally important to get them at the lowest price to make the flip worthwhile. It’s recommended that you look for furniture in secondhand stores, garage sales, and flea markets. When you’re online, be sure to check out buy and sell sites for used furniture such as LookingFour. If you find anything interesting, negotiate with the seller for the best price on the item.

Start a Profitable Furniture Flipping Business with LookingFour

Sometimes you just have to dive in and get your feet wet to succeed at something you’ve never done before. Starting a furniture flipping business may be daunting to you at first, but it’s the kind of business you wouldn’t go into if you didn’t have the skills or passion for it anyway.

What’s more, there are incredible benefits to starting a furniture flipping business. Aside from the extra income and the creative outlet you’ll gain, you’ll also be able to help reduce waste by reusing old furniture that would otherwise be headed to landfills.

Are you ready to get your furniture-flipping business off the ground? Check out LookingFour for secondhand furniture you can flip right away, and sell your newly flipped pieces to willing buyers as one of our Sigurado Sellers!

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