10 Cheap Furniture Shop Singapore: Online, thrift shops, warehouse sales

What do you do when money is tight and your house needs stuff?

Do yourself a favour and think about this before you head to the low-cost furniture store. With a bit of planning and a little effort, you can give your place a million-dollar designer makeover — for pennies on the dollar.

Young couples and families seeking to revamp their home at minimal cost usually find themselves roaming the winding paths of Ikea’s showroom. After all, they offer all kinds of cheap yet stylish furniture – from office to outdoor – which is hard to come by in Singapore.

But apart from the Swedish furniture store, there are many other places to minimise the cost of your home furnishing drastically. Thanks to the internet, many furniture retailers can take their business directly to consumers like you and I via different online and e-commerce platforms, which reduces prices significantly.

6 Cheap Furniture Online Shops in Singapore

To save on your furniture costs, just head to one of the cheap furniture online or physical shops in Singapore.

This sounds like the easy way out, but a lot of it boils down to luck and that can be the hard part. But do a little digging and you could find yourself with some fab furniture for less.

FortyTwo

A popular site for home furnishing on the cheap is FortyTwo. The site covers the entire range of home furnishings from lawn chairs to wardrobes.

Taobao Furniture

"It's from Taobao?!"

Sounds familiar? You’ve probably heard this gleeful declaration a dozen times, or said it yourself, when friends admire something in a new home.

You can get very beautiful furniture and replica designer furniture pieces for cheap on the Chinese e-commerce Taobao.

However, due to the language barrier and lack of regulation and quality control, you could end up with furniture shopping nightmares, too.

Generally, you should use Taobao furniture shops and sellers with a positive track record. You can score cheap and high-quality furniture deals if you do your due research.

Read More: Homeowners Share Their Taobao Furniture Regrets - Plus Taobao Shopping Tips

Qoo10

Another online resource is Qoo10. Like a virtual bazaar, its furniture department houses a large number of brands from a wide selection of vendors. The site essentially creates a market in virtual space, providing vendors with a place at which to set up shop and display their wares.

With a sufficiently large enough vendor base, competition inevitably sets in, and prices are forced down to competitive levels. Although the selection is more generic here, the prices are guaranteed to elicit smiles.

Craigslist Singapore Furniture

More patient bargain hunters can also find deals on Craigslist, which is a useful repository of classified ads of all types. So if you wade through the sea of commercial furniture listings, you could just find that dream armoire. A quick search uncovered a number of used designer pieces at great discounts, though the “buyer beware” adage applies.

Carousell or Gumtree

It is a well-known statistic that about a quarter of Singapore’s population comprises non-residents temporarily working in the country. When they leave the country for good, a bounty can be had by swooping in on the inevitable garage sales and scooping up some bargain finds.

The best way to come across these sales are by taking a walk around residential districts where expats tend to congregate, or by checking on the notice boards at their neighbourhood communal spaces and grocery stores.

Don’t forget, too, that Carousell and Gumtree are also good sites to trawl. Bonus: Along with ads for the items themselves are listings for transport services for all your new used stuff.

Expat Auctions (Closed)

Singapore is host to a lot of foreigners who live here for a finite amount of time. When they leave, they often want to get rid of their stuff, much of which was imported (at great cost) when they got here.

Before there was Carousell, there was the former Expat Auctions that carried designer furniture at discount prices. But because you have to bid for them in a room full of people, this may not be for the faint-hearted. There are bargains to be had, though, if you are up to it. Auctions are held weekly, with items displayed on the website in advance.

4 Thrift Stores To Buy Secondhand Furniture

Why buy new when one can “adopt” and breathe life into old (& cheap) second hand furniture? Thrift shops and curio shops are open to the needy, as well as those looking for a unique piece and who like to leave the perfect find to serendipity. 

Thrift shops, on the other hand have a much smaller inventory. On most days, finding anything worth buying would be pure good luck. However, there are those wonderful days when one does come across hidden treasure.

They may not be as cheap as they once were, but it sure beats buying flat-pack furniture for ease of use and style.

Junkie's Corner

Great places to go on the hunt are Junkie’s corner at 2 Turf Club Road, thrift shops at Salvation Army outlets and at certain churches.

The shop space at Junkie’s is a large cavernous space filled to the brim with all sorts of eclectic items.

Even if not on the lookout for anything in particular, a visit there is always an adventure.

Hock Siong & Co

For example, check out the Facebook or Instagram pages of Hock Siong & Co. (which sells a lot of designer ex-hotel stock).

Second Charm

And then, there's Second Charm which offers restored period furniture pieces.

Salvation Army

Finally, try the Thrift Stores dotted around the island run by the Salvation Army, where donated items of all price ranges find new life. You could, as this fortunate writer has, find a vintage teakwood armchair for a double-digit sum, or a unique oil painting for well under $50 — money which went to a good cause.

Read More: 6 Places to Buy Wood Furniture in Singapore

Buy Furniture from Warehouse Sales

A bargain hunter’s favourite is the warehouse sale.

Typically, these are advertised in the local newspapers or on banners along the roads in industrial areas. These are some of the best deals that one can come across, as the main aim is to clear out the warehouse and the mark-downs can be significant.

Some multi-label home furnishing and electronics retailers like Harvey Norman, Gain City, Best Denki, and Courts do hold warehouse clearance sales several times a year.

To keep abreast of such sales, keep track of forums that are especially catered to this interest group. Try the Singapore Warehouse Sales Singpromo page.

Buy Furniture from Liquidation Sales

You might recall the high profile closure of the Changi Raint33 Hotel located right next to the Old Changi Hospital back in November 2020.

Their closure was met with a cash and carry furniture sale that saw an unending queue of Singaporeans clear out the former hotel.

Fire sales or liquidation sales may have a relatively limited range but are worth a look for some gems. Again, these are would be listed in the newspaper articles and classified advertisements

In most cases, small businesses, offices or hotels would be the ones to succumb to challenging economic conditions, so if conversation pieces for the living room are not available, it is almost certain practical furnishings for the home office can be found here.

With some elbow grease and creativity, no budget is too small to put some individual personality into the home, so get out there and let the hunt begin.

Read Also: 5 Best Places To Buy Sofa - How to choose a good sofa?

DIY Restore Old Furniture to Look New Again

Okay, let’s say you really did find that designer bargain, but it’s looking a little bit too “pre-loved” for your liking. What do you do?

Be bold, buy some latex gloves and get to painting, of course. That’s right, for just $5 or even less, get yourself a can of DIY spray paints and transform that old coffee table or pendant light fixture into a modern designer-alike unique piece.

There are spray paints for all types of surfaces, from plastic to wood to glass, so your paint job should stand the tests of time. Some brands of paint don’t even require sanding or prep work, so you can quickly get creative with all kinds of colours and finishes to give your house a new colour scheme.

For example, you could spray an old lamp sparkling gold for that million-dollar look, or use chalkboard paint on a feature wall for that trendy creative look.

Upcycle Your Existing Furniture

For example, does your TV console really have to be a purpose-made item? Why not be different and try using something completely unexpected, like a former hotel luggage rack? Or, how about using a bargain old bookcase as a bar?

The World Wide Web (and much of Pinterest) is awash with creative ideas like these, so get to searching.

And to be fair, don’t ignore IKEA completely just yet, as there are thousands of sites offering IKEA “hacks” to price-sensitive home decorators who dare to be different.

You could give even the simplest desk a swanky makeover with a roll of carefully-chosen wallpaper or — at the other extreme — saw a round table in half and set it against the wall to be used as a creative bedside table.

Just because something was designed for one purpose doesn’t mean it can’t be used for another!

Part of this article first appeared on Singsaver.