In the summer of 2019, Jacqueline Lobel, a 33-year-old TV
producer, was scrolling through Craigslist, optimistically hoping to buy a
dining room table that would fit into a slightly dark space in the large studio
apartment she had just moved into in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
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“When I saw how this apartment was staged before I rented
it, I was inspired to do the same layout, so I knew what kind of table I
needed,” she said.
Two months into her search, she saw a post that promised a
gorgeous, 42-inch walnut wood and brass dining room table in good condition.
It was part of the décor at Günter Seeger, a
Michelin-starred restaurant that was closing in Manhattan’s West Village. The
custom-made table retailed for $3,000. The proprietors were offering it for
$500. She bought it for that price.
Everything is sellable“I met the owners and could tell they were sad about selling
these pieces. There’s romanticism and story behind them,” said Lobel, who has
learned that anything and everything is findable — and sellable — on e-commerce
sites, especially Facebook Marketplace.
So naturally Lobel turned to Facebook Marketplace two years
later when that same table fell out of favor.
“I loved it, but I was too precious about damaging it to use
it,” she said. “I think I had two or three dinners on it before it became a
visual clutter and dumping ground for packages.”
Despite the awkwardness Lobel said she feels when
interacting with strangers, she loves enthusiastic buyers who will give her
furniture “a happy place” to live. “I’m continuing a cycle. I’m getting rid of
something to bring something else in.” (Last year she scored an impressive
vintage camel leather couch for $50.)
She posted photos and descriptions of the table in November
2022, but it sat unclaimed for a month before she refreshed the posting. The
following day, the table was spotted by Ruth Gallogly, 51, a freelance writer
and consultant who lives in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.
After a few messages and some texts, Gallogly said she sent
over “a guy with a van that I use when something needs to be picked up.” The
mover measured the piece, confirmed it was the right size, and Gallogly paid
Lobel $500 by Venmo.
An hour later it glowed in Gallogly’s kitchen in her
one-bedroom co-op. “Now it’s become this warm, welcoming hosting spot,” said
Gallogly, who had been trying to fill the space since she renovated her
apartment in 2021. “I loved the table, but I also loved the back story and the
history this piece of furniture had to tell,” she said. “I share it with
everyone who visits.”
Furniture handoff sparks an unexpected relationship
And so, it goes. A furniture handoff sparking an unexpected
relationship.
“People are looking for connection. Through this transaction
you’re continuing a thread through a shared piece of furniture,” said Charles
Lindsey, an associate professor of marketing at University at Buffalo School of
Management, whose focus is on the psychology of consumption and consumer
behavior.
“That’s how you can share a piece of someone’s life,”
Lindsey added. “It’s also the new story you’re creating by extending the
history of something that someone owned by how you display it and embrace that
item. It makes buying something from someone else psychologically attractive.”
E-commerce sites offer that attraction to millions of
consumers, from the amateur sleuth to the full-blown shopping addict.
Gallogly, who likes the hunt, has furnished her home over
the past year with more than 20 items from Marketplace. “I’m one of those
people who knows what I like once I see it but who has a hard time visualizing
how things will look in a space or what colors will work well together,” she
said.
Sylvain Sénécal, a marketing professor at the business
school HEC Montreal who specializes in digital marketing and consumer behavior,
said Gallogly was not alone.
“The social proof and inspiration these items create when
someone sees how one person highlighted it in their apartment and how someone
else can do the same in their home is part of the draw,” he said. “For
potential buyers, that becomes aspirational. It triggers something that increases
their willingness to buy something.”
Like many shoppers, Gallogly doesn’t identify as just a
buyer, she also quickly became a seller, adding to the momentum of a continuous
furniture circulating chain.
In 2019 she purchased a gray and white marbleized oval
coffee table from CB2, which she adored. That feeling never changed, but her
surroundings did. After the renovation, it no longer went with the décor.
“The idea that this was in my home and I loved it, and that
I’m able to pass this along to someone else who will love it is very settling,”
she said.
She posted the oval table at the end of December 2022. At
$400, it wasn’t getting any inquiries. She lowered the price to $350. Then
$300.
When Kristen Daibes and her husband moved from their small
one-bedroom rental in Edgewater, New Jersey, in 2020 into a 1920s
colonial-style three-bedroom house in Harrington Park, New Jersey, they
suddenly had extra rooms to furnish.
Daibes, a 30-year-old elementary teacher, wanted something
oval that was white and gray to complete a family room, and spent six months
scrolling on Marketplace. She was instantly smitten with Gallogly’s table, but
it was out of her budget until the price dropped. When it went to $275, she
pounced. In January of 2023, she stood alongside her husband, Ghanem Daibes, in
Gallogly’s hallway.
“Once I saw it, I started envisioning it in our room, with a
candle placed on it, and yelling at my husband for not using a coaster,” she
said. “I’m a big secondhand person, my husband is not. I had to sell him on
this concept, and the coffee table.”
The piece now resides alongside a piano and two couches,
under a skylight in their family room. “As unsentimental and boring as a coffee
table is, there’s an acknowledgment that someone loved this item in their home
and it is now in mine. I’m giving it a second life,” she added.
Daibes’ satisfaction and sentimentality, which seemed rather
passionate in the beginning, was surprisingly short-lived.
“None of these pieces last in our home forever,” she added.
“I’ll probably sell it in a few years.”
The furniture tango is always moving and constantly changing
partners. Sometimes the dance is easy, other times, not so much.
Lobel, who felt an emotional loss at selling the round
table, was soothed by quickly filling the once empty space with a bookshelf,
chest and reading chair — all bought secondhand, and by the fact that Gallogly
was so thrilled at the find, and purchase.
“It was a beautiful piece. But I empathized with Ruth
deeply,” she said. “I was her three years ago looking for a beautiful round
table. Knowing I helped her find that made it more sweet than bitter.”
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