It’s easy to be lured into buying brand new — fast furniture brands offer good-looking pieces with fun names at affordable prices. However, we at Kaiyo are on a mission help furnish the world more sustainably. If you’re looking for something that’s long-lasting and one-of-a-kind, show Mother Earth some love and start buying secondhand and used furniture. Here’s why:
You get more for less
Whether you have champagne taste on a beer budget, or you need to fill your new home fast, secondhand shopping gives you access to timeless furniture at a fraction of the price. Don’t shy away from that Roche Bobois sofa or that Knoll work desk. The money you save buying used means you can furnish an entire room with used furniture for what it would cost to buy one thing new.
Your furniture gets better with time
Subtle changes in natural materials bring about a patina of age, resulting in a richness and deepening of character. Exposure handling — which is just a fancy way to describe the effect created by the oils of your hands — and other elements like air and moisture, cause variations in color and texture that simply cannot be rivaled by pre-fab furniture. Uniquely-patterned wood grain with minor nicks and dents has a charm all its own, and leather gets softer and more distinctive with increased use.
You’re helping the planet
Personally taking on climate change seems like an insurmountable task. We’re here to remind you, you don’t have to go it alone. When you buy used, you become part of a larger effort to eliminate furniture from landfills and keep it in peoples’ homes longer. How cool is that?
In the last few years, Sweden’s Schibsted Media Group created the Second-Hand Effect to measure the impact of secondhand shopping at large. They found it helped eliminate 20.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses and 1.1 million metric tons of plastic — the equivalent to 24 million return flights from Paris to New York, and 162 billion plastic bags.
You’re helping your community
Think of the sellers on Kaiyo as your neighbors who are in a tight spot — tasked with moving, they need to clear out their space fast but don’t want to see the furniture that so loyally served them put out on the curb. Buying used gives their pieces new life, and helps you be more neighborly.
If you’re looking for timeless pieces that are built to last, dive into the latest finds in our collection!
