How Do You Avoid Lowball Offers When Selling Furniture?
Set a floor price. On Commonplace, offers at or above your hidden floor are accepted automatically. Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease explains how it works.
Watch the episode: Special Episode: Ready to Let It Go? What to Do with Furniture You No Longer Need, Organizing with Ease with Diana Moll, aired November 10, 2026. Listen on Apple Podcasts.
Short answer: Decide your lowest acceptable price once, before the offers come in. On Commonplace you list at a price based on real sales and can add an optional floor price, the lowest offer you would be happy with. Buyers never see it. Any offer at or above it is accepted automatically, so there is no haggling in your messages.
Ari Kimmelfeld explained the floor price on Organizing with Ease with host Diana Moll.
What Ari said
And I think on Facebook Marketplace, the seller is anticipating people to, quote unquote, lowball them. And so they price at a certain high price because they're expecting to sell it for maybe half of that. But that causes a lot of friction.
Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease, at 24:15
But more importantly, we ask you to list your price based on the suggestion and then the floor price. And that floor price is super important. And it asks you, how much would you be happy getting rid of this for?
Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease, at 24:53
So let's say if there's a hot tub and the market says it's worth about $3,000, in their mind they'll be like, you know what? I'll be happy with $1,800 for this hot tub. But they don't put that in the listing for obvious reasons.
Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease, at 25:12
Decide once, then stop thinking about it
So what we do is we ask you your floor price. We keep it hidden from a buyer.
Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease, at 25:29
You do it once, you figure out what that happy number is, and then any offer above that is automatically accepted.
Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease, at 26:04
Ari said it helps buyers too, because a serious offer gets an answer right away:
For buyers, it's a really great experience because they get immediate feedback.
Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease, at 26:11
You already made a decision and it was a smart decision because you based it on market prices.
Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease, at 26:48
How offers work on Commonplace
- A suggested price. Based on what similar items have sold for. See the Resale Index.
- An optional floor price. Hidden from buyers. Offers at or above it are accepted automatically.
- Offers below the floor. Commonplace contacts you to accept, decline, or counter. You are never obligated to accept.
- No meetups. Commonplace picks up, inspects, and delivers the item, and you are paid at pickup.
Read why you can't sell furniture for what you paid, or browse used furniture and used hot tubs. For the full conversation, read Ready to Let It Go?: Ari Kimmelfeld on Organizing with Ease.
Commonplace is the Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and OfferUp alternative for big items. Listing is free, and Commonplace handles pickup, inspection, delivery, secure payments, and a free two-month parts warranty. Labor coverage is available as an add-on. White-glove delivery is free within 100 miles, longer distances are quoted by ZIP, and Commonplace ships nationwide. See how it works.
Related questions
Do buyers see my floor price?
No. The floor price is hidden from buyers. It only decides which offers are accepted automatically.
What happens to an offer below my floor price?
It is not accepted automatically. Commonplace contacts you to accept, decline, or counter, and you are never obligated to accept an offer.
Do I have to set a floor price?
No. It is optional, and you can list without one.
Thank you to Diana Moll for having Ari on Organizing with Ease. Quotes are from the episode, lightly edited for reading. Listen to the full conversation on Apple Podcasts.
More from Ari's podcast interviews: questions Ari answered on podcasts and every show he has been on.