When Reham Fagiri tried to sell her furniture on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist during a move from Philadelphia to New York, she didn’t realize she was stumbling onto the idea for a fast-growing business.
Although many shoppers responded to her listings, she found the selling experience vexing. Some seemingly interested shoppers didn’t show up as promised. She wishes there were payment and shipping options baked into the platforms. Beyond this, as a single woman, she worried about the risk of one-on-one selling after a harrowing experience with a man who became agitated once inside her home. “I felt really unsafe in my space,” she says.
Raised in Sudan in a family in which many relatives were small business owners, she had always wanted to become an entrepreneur – “I’ve seen it done time and time again,” she says – and realized she had found her moment. And she had the technology and business skills to bring her idea to life. She had earned a BS in engineering from the University of Maryland and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an engineering manager at Goldman Sachs after graduation.
Fagiri soon launched AptDeco, a peer-to-peer selling site where consumers can buy popular brands such as West Elm, Jonathan Adler, and Pottery Barn for up to 70% off. She teamed up with co-founder and chief revenue office Kalam Dennis, a former L’Oreal VP who scaled well-known brands such as Maybelline Great Lash, and director of operations Ben Gomilla, who launched and ran the largest Amazon Fresh Fulfillment Center. The platform builds in features such as online purchasing, a dispute process, and nationwide shipping via its tech-enabled logistics platform.
One way AptDeco stood out was by not opening warehouses. Its employees pick up furniture in its delivery vans and use a proprietary network of carriers to bring it to customers, giving it an edge over platforms where buyers need to haul furniture from the sellers’ homes. Fagiri says cumulative revenue has been just under $100 million. She expects the 50-employee company to be fully profitable this year.
Since launching in 2014, the furniture marketplace, incubated in the prestigious YCombinator accelerator, has attracted $20 million in angel and venture capital in five rounds from investors such as Morgan Stanley, Liquid 2 Ventures and Great Oaks Venture Capital. Based in New York City, AptDeco has built its most extensive customer base in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The circular economy surges
Demand for second-hand merchandise is surging in the U.S., with the market size estimated at $186 billion as of 2024 and a compound annual growth rate of 17.2% projected from 2025 to 2035, according to Transparency Market Research.
Driving the trends are a host of interlocking factors: consumers’ desire to save money in an inflationary environment, growing awareness of the importance of sustainability, technological advancements like AI-driven pricing algorithms, brand-endorsed resale programs for companies such as IKEA and Patagonia.
Furniture is a hot category in the second-hand world. The global second-hand furniture market is expected to reach $57 billion by 2030, up from $34 billion in 2023, according to Grand View Research. AptDeco faces comopetition from rivals including Chairish and Kaiyo.
Many consumers are looking to make more sustainable purchases or save money by purchasing used, remanufactured, and refurbished furniture, the report notes. Particularly sought-after is wooden furniture, with a 39.33% revenue share in 2023, the report says. Seventy-eight percent of purchases are for residences.
Fagiri has noticed that many of her customers are driven by a desire for sustainability. “Our customers were saying, ‘It’s easy, it’s convenient, I’m finding a deal—but it’s also helping the environment,” says Fagiri. The brand has diverted close to 20 million pounds of furniture from landfills, she says. “Is
Meanwhile, large furniture brands are turning to AptDeco to re-sell furniture via private-label sites it creates for them. “Instead of going to an outlet store, you can find these products on AptDeco,” she says.
Tariffs may help second-hand furniture sellers.
Tariffs may soon add to the appeal of second-hand furniture. President Trump has touted tariffs as a way to bring furniture-making back to the U.S. However, the domestic furniture industry is currently seeing a decline in orders, with new orders dipping 9% in April, according to the industry newsletter Furniture Insights. Contributing factors include slow home sales attributed to high mortgage rates and high materials costs.
“Since most of our products are preowned and already in the U.S., we haven’t been directly impacted by the tariffs,” said Fagiri. “However, we’re seeing early signs of consumers gravitating towards resale to find better value amidst rising costs elsewhere. At the same time, more brands are exploring how to participate in resale to expand their revenue streams and soften the impact of tariffs. It’s an exciting time for the circular economy.”
