Why Isn’t My Painted Furniture Selling in July?
July is such a fun month! Summer vacation, 4th of July Celebrations, going to the pool.... However, I often realize that furniture flippers find July can be a stressful month due to lack of sales. Have you been wondering why your furniture isn’t selling during this month?
Here are a few things to consider about selling your furniture flips in July:
1. People are on vacation. A lot of people are focusing their budgets and time on going on their family vacations and probably aren’t thinking about adding furniture to their homes. When they spend less time in the house, how it’s decorated isn’t on the forefront of their minds.
2. All of the major retailers just had huge sales. Amazon Prime Day, Walmart+ Week, Nordstrom Anniversary Sale… you get the picture. Potential customers likely just purchased either brand new furniture or other items for their homes.
3. It is HOT outside and people do not want to deal with loading furniture up. Here in Texas, it’s pretty regularly over 100 degrees on a daily basis. I don’t know about y’all, but I am NOT going out of my way to spend any extra time outside that isn’t by the pool! Try offering free/cheap delivery as an add on service (if you’re easily able to) to encourage buyers to purchase now.
4. People might be saving up for the school year for their kids. School supplies, back-to-school clothes, backpacks… the things needed to buy for kids to return to school almost seem endless. A lot of people are probably focusing their additional money on preparing for those expenses.
5. You might be selling things that aren’t popular for this time of year. It’s the summer, so people are focusing on their outdoor entertaining areas. Think patio furniture and anything used to decorate the outdoor areas of the home. Moving forward, consider looking for desks and office-type furniture as those typically sell fast during the months of August and September for school.
6. People prefer to spend less on Facebook marketplace than they do brand new. And it makes sense! Consider lowing your prices after studying what other people are selling their pieces for. Obviously if you’ve reinvented a piece and put a significant amount of work into it charge accordingly, but make sure you are in line with your competitors and aren’t too far off from the average selling price.
7. People are busy during the summer. Between kid activities, camp, work, concerts, etc. - it’s just a little bit more difficult to coordinate pickup. Again, consider offering delivery as an add on service!
8. It may have nothing to do with the timing… check out this blog linked on things to try if your furniture isn’t selling. You may have low quality photos, out of style furniture, or overpriced work for your demographic.
There are lots of productive furniture flipping activities you can do in July besides selling. You can get ahead on projects so you have stock ready to go when selling picks up, re-stage and take new (and better!) photos of your pieces, and - most importantly - you can take a break! Creative minds need rest to maintain creativity, so don’t feel bad about taking the time to reset.
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