Is there a big difference between used and pre-owned furniture versus refurbished office furniture? Yes, there is quite a big difference.
Used furniture and cubicles are a great option for quick, easy installation. They are eco-friendly, cheap, and they work well for smaller offices that need something affordable to fill the space, like a start-up, for example.
There are some downfalls of purchasing used and pre-owned furniture, however, if you are looking for longevity in your workspace and making an investment that lasts.
When purchasing used office furniture, you purchase it in as-is condition. This means scratches, scuffs, stains, dents, faulty drawers, and other cosmetic problems can be visible, and sometimes unfixable. Scratched wood desks can be sanded and re-stained, but who’s going to do that in the office? It’s probably just going to be sold as-is because it takes away from the quick and ease of purchasing the used furniture in the first place.
Many cubicles throughout the ’90s and 2000s are probably a combination of metal, wood, and maybe fabric. Dents and scratches in metal are there to stay, and scotch tape REALLY sticks to those things. It’s like picking up something at a garage sale. It probably isn’t exactly what you were looking for, but it’ll work and serve its purpose.
Used office furniture is going to be “so last season” as they say. Trends move quickly and change constantly. Sometimes as quickly as season to season, and definitely year to year. It’s hard to keep up, to begin with, but furniture decades-old maybe isn’t what your office upgrade needs. It’s all about finding that perfect balance between cookie-cutter cubicle farm, and a comfortable, unique, ergonomic workspace. People want functionality as much as they want a good aesthetic.
Unless you have found a goldmine of pristine 60s mod office furniture (which is totally back), then your used office furniture is probably not going to be on-trend. Whether this matters to the person furnishing the office or not, this is a matter of fact and if you want to invest in your workplace and entice employees, having outdated furniture may not be the right move.
With the as-is condition of used and pre-owned furniture, a whole set may be unattainable. There may not be a full office of cubicles for sale together. Sets can be purchased separately, or broken apart. If you find the perfect cubicles for your workspace, there’s no ordering more. You are going to be limited to the used inventory and could end up with a mismatched office. You would also need to re-upholster any fabric and any desktops to match if you need that cohesiveness in the office space. Lastly, seating would likely have to be purchased separately, which isn’t a big deal to some, but that may mean having new desk chairs with old desks.
There won’t be any extra customizing or configuring of your used furniture. They will have to fit as they are in your new or existing space. If you’re lucky, some cubicles do allow for the drawers to switch from left to right, but otherwise what you see is what you get. The pre-owned furniture was likely meant for a specific size and type of space, and fitting it into a new one will have to take some creativity and ingenuity to make their as-is sizes and configurations work. Modular and configurable furniture is something that can keep your office trendy and up to date whenever you need it, and that’s something that is lost with buying used vs. refurbished.
Minnesota Office Furniture specializes in refurbished workstations. Not only are they a good way to recycle and reduce waste, but they are truly the most flexible and cost-effective option you can get for your office renovation. It has the affordability of pre-owned furniture with the customization of new. What refurbished, or remanufactured, means is that the core elements of the cubicles and furniture are previously owned. With those good bones of construction, fabric, finishes, surfaces, and add-ons can be updated to get the furniture to fit exactly to your needs, at a fraction of the cost of buying new.