Complaint Review: Red Modern Furniture - Nationwide

Yikes...that's the problem with open forums like this. A supposedly sophisticated businessman makes a deal to sell chairs and gets upset because the buyer lists them for a lot more. Get real. Dealers provide a valuable service on both sides of a transaction. They give the seller an opportunity to unload unwanted merchandize. They give the buyer an opportunity to buy soimething desirable. Both transactions are completed through price negotiation. That is free enterprise. Your ridiculous complaint is an indication that your extensive business experience is mostly in your head.

Ok, so I came across this while coincidentally, doing research on some chairs.  First, I have to say that the previous comment by Phoenix-Native is all that you need to hear regarding this ridiculous poster. I am only commenting to further emphasize how asinine this 'report' really is. I live in Phoenix, not too far from the Red Modern showroom. I am a layman in regards to vintage furniture, however I do have an obsessive interest and passion for mid century furniture. In my travels, I have come across some incredible deals on amazing furniture, so naturally I have contacted Red to see if they'd be interested in purchasing my finds. That's as far as my connection to this company goes. I will admit, I haven't sold anything to them because we haven't come to an agreeable price. That is because I did my research, and I felt I could get more for the pieces through other avenues. That being said, I can confidently call BS! on this poster.  La de fricken da! You bought a $2.9M "estate"! If that were true, why are you so hung up on what you feel you 'lost' in this deal?? You state that you're a "serial entrepreneur" and have "developed more than a dozen businesses many of which are still thriving enterprises". If this is truly the case, then you should have at least enough business savvy to understand all of the aspects that go in to selling a product. Especially if you initiated a "two month investigation costing thousands of dollars". (So you spent thousands of dollars to find out why you didn't get thousands of dollars for your used chairs? Yeah, that's the mark of a smart business man, Carl) Is it beyond your understanding that to take a USED product, re-condition it to absolute standards, store it for who knows how long until it sells (at least 2 months at the point of this posting), and then ship it to possibly the farthest reaches (i.e. Dubai or Japan), will be built in to the selling price?  Prior to your "investigation" did you at any point look at the comparable prices of the other Mariani chairs that were for sale? You admit they are "highly desireable". (I just did a simple Google image search for 'Mariani chairs', and two years later, these chairs, the 'Tucroma', populates 7x in the first 10 images, and the prices are from $500 - ebay to $2000 - 1st Dibs, a piece). Any time I find a piece, I look at what the brand, style, and demand is for similar pieces. This seems like common sense to me, but hey, maybe you were dealing with your estate, or many business ventures.  I surely hope that in your research you looked in to (your reference) 1st Dibs, and what most of the rest of us have already figured out. 1st Dibs is a site for a very specific clientele of designers and folks of which money is no object. No one should ever base pricing on what 1st Dibs says. Based upon your referencing this in your report above, AFTER your supposed research, I can only assume you wasted those "two months and thousands of dollars". As to your continuity in this report, I am at a loss. This is a very difficult post to understand. Why did you bring in Craigslist.org? Why are you adamant that you are helping "a potential buyer arrive at a fair selling price"? Any potential buyer from Red isn't going to care about your whining, just that they get a beautiful product for the price that they are willing to spend. Believe me, I wish that I could get 1st Dibs prices for all the stuff I find. But I don't have the name, credibility, following, or reconditioning ability that Red or others dealers of their caliber have. But I don't whine about it on Ripoff Report. I take what I can get when I can get it. And I don't go home to a "$2.9M estate" to manage my many "business ventures."

So you are mad that Red Modern is attempting to turn a profit?  You agreed to sell a used set of chairs for $750, that is the beginning and the end of the transaction as far as I am concerned.  Once you got paid, it is none of your business what the chairs sell for.  If for some reason they can not unload you chairs, do you still share some responisbility in their loss?  Would you somehow owe them money if the chairs did not sell?  I'm going to venture on a pretty strong limb and assume you wouldn't care.  

I have no affiliation with Red Modern, but I am in the industry.  Red has an extremely small unqiue clientelle that they share with nobody else in Arizona.  I can tell you with confidence that they are about the only furniture dealer that can command those types of prices on essentially used furniture.  Short of selling the chairs yourself, you received as much as you could get for the chairs unless you had connections outside the state, California or the East Coast.

Its unfortunate that you filed such an uneducated and ridiculous report.