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The San Francisco-based entrepreneurs who launched a new marketplace Wednesday hope to connect with those who want to buy or sell high-end antique or designer furniture online, a market they believe has been underserved.

Chairish is a site for high-end designer, antique, and collectible furniture - the kinds of items that could otherwise be sold at consignment shops or on Craigslist because they're too heavy and valuable to ship using the well-known delivery services such as the USPS or FedEx.

For most customers Chairish will call on a regional and national network of "white glove" specialty shippers to pick furnishings up from the seller and transport them to the buyer, says Anna Brockway, Chief Curator and co-founder of Chairish. "Shipping large items can be intimidating," she says. "With Chairish, the seller gets a phone call from our shipping partner, a white glove service. They come to your home, remove the item, and stores it. The purchaser pays at checkout. We ship it and fully insure it."

For sellers who live in the San Francisco area, a "concierge service" is available that handles all aspects of selling furniture, including taking pieces out, storing and photographing them, writing descriptions and posting them online, and managing shipping and payment. Chairish plans eventually to make its concierge service available in more and more markets.

For standard customers, Chairish takes 20 percent of a purchase price as its fee, while concierge customers pay 40 percent of the purchase price. No listing fees are charged, and all sales are fixed-price.

Chairish is a curated site: items need to be approved by Anna Brockway and her fellow curators before they can be placed online. Chairish is for "design-obsessed people to buy and sell their exceptional pre-owned home furnishings" and that offerings will include "high quality, designer, and often unique home decor." Brockway, a self-described "design freak," majored in art history major, spent most of time studying modern architecture. "I come from a design family," she says. "I've sort of spent my whole life around furniture designers, interior designers, and that world."

For standard and concierge sellers, in fact, Cherish requires that all items need to be listed for at least $250. Concierge users are required to have at least $1000 worth of furnishings to sell. "We are targeting buyers and sellers people of high style and quality," Brockway added. Although the site was conceived of site as being for individuals who want to sell home furnishings, Chairish is getting inquiries from businesses that have excess inventory such as interior designers and consignment shops.

The selection of a shipper is arranged by Chairish. Customers will be able to return items during a two-day evaluation period but will be charged a restocking fee. Chairish's management team also includes Gregg Brockway, Andy Denmark, Eric Grosse, and Nancy Ramamurthi.

Anna Brockway said she and her husband Gregg came up with the idea for Cherish during one of their moves. "We have moved two or three times in course of marriage, and each time, we end up with the same problem," she says. "We have a hard time fitting all our furnishings into a new house. We ran down the normal options that mot people look at - Craigslist, eBay, or local consignment shop. It is remarkably challenging for an individual to sell nice things, for a lot of reasons. It dawned upon us that it was the perfect problem for the Internet to solve. Individuals who care about design and who have nice things to sell can connect with individuals who are about design, and sell in an easy and efficient matter."

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About the author:

Greg Holden is EcommerceBytes Contributing Editor. He is a journalist and the author of many books, including "Starting an Online Business For Dummies," "Go Google: 20 Ways to Reach More Customers and Build Revenue with Google Business Tools," and several books about eBay, including "How to Do Everything with Your eBay Business," second edition, and "Secrets of the eBay Millionaires," both published by Osborne-McGraw Hill. Find out more on Greg's website, which includes his blog, a list of his books, and his fiction and biographical writing.

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