I've only done so three times, but when I've had to furnish a new office space, I've obtained all the office furniture from auction houses that sell the furniture from other companies that were liquidated.<p>I just assumed that was where most such used furniture went, but I guess not. That's too bad -- buying from a liquidator is not only better for the environment, but is a <i>lot</i> less expensive, and every startup should be minimizing costs where they can. This is an easy and painless way to minimize costs.
<i>“The amount of waste in this industry would boggle your mind,” said David Esterlit, the owner of OHR Home Office Solutions, a refurbishing company and liquidator in Midtown Manhattan that has resold equipment from big office tenants.</i><p><i>Despite efforts to reuse and repurpose office equipment, most still ends up in the trash, said Trevor Langdon, the chief executive of Green Standards, a sustainability consulting company that helps to minimize office waste. Based on 2018 federal statistics on waste, the latest year with available data, Mr. Langdon estimates that more than 10 million tons of office furniture in the United States end up in a landfill every year.</i>
This article also from NYT, earlier this year, talks more about the used furniture industry and what's happening on the west coast:<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/technology/office-furniture-tech-companies.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/25/technology/office-furnitu...</a>
Around the kick-off of the last big recession, articles started showing up about how refurbishing companies/liquidator were great investments during a down market. Same with the big recession before that, too.<p>I wonder if this is the trend is repeating... I don't know, but it makes me think it might be bad for a few years.