Leah McCann Smith | Writer & Editor

If you live in a city, like me, you know that it can be hellish to buy, sell, and move furniture in and out of your apartment. (And it’s not only a headache, but it costs an arm and a leg to do it.)

So naturally, I had my hopes up when I tried selling my couch on AptDeco—only to have an overall terrible, unclear, and exhausting experience with the service this past weekend.

Let me give you the backstory.

My couch is from CB2. It’s on the funkier side, only if for the fact that it’s red, but the lines are clean, making it more modern and contemporary than some of their other pieces. I’ve had it about a year, though there was year or so of wear on it before it arrived in my first Brooklyn apartment. I won’t bore you on the details there. Couches at CB2 cost no less than $800, so I priced my couch at $299 (over 60% off the retail price), and even agreed to cover 50% of the delivery costs in NY for the buyer. This made his/her total purchase come to $342.

But wait—I would only be receiving a fraction of that profit, because of these fun reasons:

• For large items, AptDeco charges the seller $85 per item on delivery. That’s a lot of extra money, especially when you’re buying something as significant as a couch. That’s like buying half of a whole second couch. Remember, I also agreed to cover half the delivery expense in order to make my item look more attractive, so I’m taking a $43 cut here. If I were a part of the team at AptDeco, I’d find a way to cut down that number if they want to keep customers.
• AptDeco takes a 23% cut of your sale. TWENTY-THREE PERCENT. Also too high. And guess what? They just hiked that number up not too long ago. The service fee used to be 19% less than a month ago, which is still too high. But hell, it was better than 23%.

Onward with my story. And here’s where it all goes downhill.

1:00 p.m.: The delivery guys showed up, after an hour within the four-hour window I was given for arrival (yes, essentially you have to sit at your apartment without leaving for four straight hours until AptDeco arrives). The guys took another 15 minutes to park and shimmy on up to my place.

1:15 p.m.: The delivery guys, referred to as “consultants,” were not super friendly—and I think frankly afraid to crack a smile—took photos of my couch. They said that there were some additional marks they claimed hadn’t been on the photos/listing that I posted, so they needed to verify with the buyer that he/she still wanted the couch. At that point, I knew this service was too good to be true.

1:30 p.m.: The delivery guys said they would give the buyer 15 minutes to respond (via email—they’re not allowed to pick up the phone and call the person). If he/she did not respond in 15 minutes, AptDeco would contact the warehouse (again, by email) to see that the couch could still be taken. If AptDeco agreed to take it, I would still receive the profits in this case, despite the buyer not wanting the couch anymore.

A whole hour goes by.

This aside is not a desperate cry for sympathy, just worth noting for anyone who does this in the future: I no longer live at this apartment, so it was extremely awkward and uncomfortable for me to wait in a home that was no longer mine, while the new tenants cooked breakfast in front of me and two random delivery dudes sitting on my soon-to-be unpurchased couch…Talk about awkward. If you’re selling a piece of furniture through AptDeco for pickup, make sure you’re prepared to wait at least an hour during your time slot—at the minimum.

2:30 p.m.: The verdict has finally arrived. The seller no longer wants the couch “because of these new marks,” and AptDeco is not going to take it either. But hey—they threw me a bone and said they could still take the couch out of my apartment as part of their “furniture removal service.” It would only cost me an additional $75! Wait a minute.

I have so much beef to spill here, but here are some of my biggest points of contention:

• Why did AptDeco verify my item as such and—regardless of the buyer’s decision—not end up taking it at the end of a long ass morning? Totally want the item to match its description to honor the buyer, but shouldn’t AptDeco have taken the couch regardless, as they verified its condition?
• I now have to pay for YOU to remove my couch because of a miscommunication/disagreement between the buyer and the seller? What?
• No use of calling when communicating between all involved parties? Email only? What is this, 2016? (That was a joke. Of course it’s 2016.) This ate up valuable time and money for both parties.

What now?

Well, I guess I’ll try one of those other furniture buying/selling/moving companies, like Move Loot, or something. At this point, it’s likely that my dear red CB2 couch will end up on the dirty streets of Bushwick.

At least the street rats will have a comfortable place to chill for an evening.

—

UPDATE (6/27, 4:05 p.m.): So much for that idea.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE (7/1, 5:30 p.m.): So much for the idea of that idea.