Month: May 2011

Hi guys! Today is day two of the chit chat with the two girls of School of Vintage. I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s post that featured questions about coming up with the “big idea” and ways to work  to make it happen.

Today’s post will hopefully give you a few behind the scenes secrets of HOW to actually run a small business. These are the things you don’t necessarily consider in the beginning stages, but are really important in making the whole adventure successful. Let’s get started.

Q: For me, the thrill of the hunt is what keeps me going back for more. Where are your go-to trusty places to track down product for School of Vintage? Are there certain people out there that help you track stuff down?

A: We build our inventory by shopping at local thrift stores, not-so-local thrift stores, estate sales, yard sales, flea markets and, our personal favorite, the trash. We are a consignment business so some of our inventory is from outside sources but we’re very discerning with what we’re willing to sell. Jeannine’s fiancé, Chris, has consigned a lot of really great things with us and friends and family (and even some strangers) are always trying to give their “vintage” items away to us. Even though we don’t sell just anything, we always jump at the opportunity to check out what people want to give away. Always.

It’s so much fun!! If we could do this for our living without needing other jobs, then our dreams would come true. Even when we’re at our busiest with School of Vintage (hunting, listing, marketing, packaging, cleaning, answering messages, remedying issues, etc.) it never feels like work. And that’s when you know you’ve found something you really should be doing with your time.

Q: I noticed that both of you gals have other pretty full time jobs, when do you make time for School of Vintage and do you have any time management suggestions for new shop owners?

A: Yes. We both have other jobs (but hopefully not for too much longer). Erin works a full time schedule but she has flexibility and Jeannine just went from full time to part time (she could seriously do a whole interview on how momentous that was for her).  But, either way, we work on School of Vintage ALL THE TIME.  Literally. Before work, during lunch breaks, after work, weekends, holidays…all the time.  We are completely aware that if we want to have a successful business, we have to put a lot of time and energy into it.  There’s no other way around it. However, we certainly make time for ourselves and for our loved ones as well.  That’s also super important. But when you own a business, you don’t clock in and out. You’re always clocked in. It’s just the way it goes.

Our advice for time management would be to maybe schedule a day or two a week that you’d like to have off and stick to it. Set limits for yourself. Everyone is different and learning how much personal time is needed to stay sane is a very individual process.  Sometimes people are good with knowing exactly what they need and others need to go through some trial and error until they get it right. One thing is for sure…if it’s making you unhappy…something’s not right. You’ll have to find the right balance for yourself.

Q: Starting a shop and running a shop can be extremely expensive endeavors. Do you have any tips on keeping things balanced so you aren’t spending more than you need to and that you are able to make a profit in the end?

A: Start with a set amount in your business account and don’t touch it.  Also, don’t ever buy anything that is overpriced to begin with. This takes us back to the question about doing research and how it’s very important. Make sure you know what you’re buying so that you know how much you can sell it for. If you have to dip into your reserves just to purchase something, you might want to hold off on that for a while until your business is profitable enough to afford it. When you make purchases, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll ever sell it. It sounds extreme but if you shop with this in mind, it’ll really help your business expenses – especially at first. Keep a very detailed log of how much you spend on every piece of inventory, sales tax and all business expenses.  Always weigh the amount you spend, to how much you can lose, to how much you think you can make.  (We’re sure there is a technical term for this but we haven’t learned it yet.)

Q: I tend to gravitate towards containers, anything that can hold something else while out at the thrifts and antique malls. Are there certain items you guys go goo-goo gaga over?

A: We each have our own niche. While we both share a passion for all things vintage, Jeannine tends to gravitate towards mod-style shoes and clothing while Erin has an eye for mid-century housewares and linens.

Q: Let’s be honest here…If you are a lover of old things it’s incredible hard to part with a great find. Is this something that passes over time or am I doomed? Haha

A: We have a rule.  If we love something enough, we won’t sell it.  We’ll keep it.  All of our finds are filtered through us first.  But, from time to time we can’t fit something in our house or on our bodies so we’ll have to sell it and, yeah, it’s hard and the feeling never really goes away.  But it’s also nice to know that someone else appreciated it enough to buy it so there’s definitely some solace in that.

That wraps everything up and I hope you found a little nugget of info that was worth tucking away. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know these ladies and if you want to support other small business owners, go check out their stores and blog. I guarantee you’ll be pleased with what you find.

Twitter, Ebay, Etsy, Facebook, and Blogger!

I’m so lucky to bring to you guys 2-part interview with the brain children behind School of Vintage, an online vintage shop selling all my favorite goodies. Jeannine and Erin have been tag teaming their adventure and I was able to chit chat with them about how they started their business and how they work to maintain it. Starting your own business, no matter the scale of the project can be extremely daunting. I hope the suggestions and insights from these ladies will make things a bit easier. If you AREN’T starting your own business, it’s still nice to hear about how much passion goes into what these gals do.

The first part of this feature will mention the idea and how to evolve that idea into the earlier stages. Part 2 (tomorrow) is more about the logistics of making everything happen. Enjoy

Q: Sounds like the both of you met in college and had a shared love for cute vintage things. Who had the idea to start a vintage shop and how long did it take to get the project moving in the right direction?

A: Yes, we met in college. In microbiology class to be exact. Our shared love of vintage was realized at that time, but we didn’t open School of Vintage until recently. We had been collecting vintage for years and years when we met and actually attempted to open a shop on eBay, but it didn’t last long since life got in the way.

When we started to get more focused, we opened separate Etsy shops (Jeannine focusing on clothing and shoes and Erin focusing on housewares) then quickly realized that our dream from eight years earlier was still alive and thriving and decided to take it much more seriously. It took about three weeks from when our collaborative idea was born until we were a registered business. We even had a commercial space picked out in that time frame as well. We were not messing around.

Q: I’m an extremely impatient person and one of the hardest aspects of starting my own business has been that I want things to happen NOW. What has been the hardest aspect of starting School of Vintage and do you have any suggestions to call our impatient hearts?

Hahaha. A: We are both the definition of impatient.  We like to say that we’re not necessarily impulsive but that we know what our guts are telling us and we listen to them (immediately).  So, our advice for patience is to listen to your gut. Really listen to it. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Sometimes your gut won’t talk to you for a few days.  It’s trying to work some things out. While that’s happening, you have to wait. A lot of times it’s your brain and gut battling it out. But that’s what patience is: waiting (quietly) for your gut to tell your brain what to do next.

We’ve also learned that it’s hard to wait for other people.  And when you start a business you inevitably have to deal with other people. But, again, you have to be patient. We realize that we’re both definitely ‘Type A’ personalities and we like to get things done right away and we like to do them well and have a lot of control over what we do. But we’re finding out that not everyone else operates like that so we’re learning how to deal with it all as patiently as possible. It’s a learning process like everything else.

Q: One of the hardest parts of dreaming up my online shop was coming up with a name that would allow my company to evolve over the years. How did you come up with the shop name School of Vintage and how do you see the brand evolving over time?

A: The name has meaning going back to our early days.  We met at school, so we wanted our name/brand to encompass a lot of that.  Deep to our core, we are science nerds, and since we both majored in biology/biochemistry/chemistry, we wanted to incorporate that into our “brand”. We got together for a business meeting one night and high on our list of things to do was pick a name. We came up with things like Chemistry Vintage (which actually is a really cool name) and Vintage University (not so cool) until one of us said, “School of Vintage”.
We both became immediately silent and then started screaming like little kids.  That was the name. We had found it. We hope for it to evolve into exactly what a school is.  A place to learn. The most fun is researching items and learning about their pasts, who made them, their value, the inspiration behind them, etc.  Perhaps it’s our background in research, but we want to be a wealth of knowledge on all things vintage, for us, and for others.  The name makes sense as a literal sense since we met in school, but it actually means a lot more to us than just that.  A school is a place where you learn and grow as a person, so symbolically, we want our business to mean that. We want to have community involvement in the future and include artists and other small businesses. We want it to almost be a safe haven for fashion, art, music…an institution. It means a lot for us.

Q: I’m about to launch my new shop in June and I’m looking into ways to promote what I’m doing. What have you found to be the best ways to promote your shop? Digitally and traditionally?

A: Digitally, we use Twitter, Facebook, and blogging to help us promote our business.  In person, we use business cards, promotional magnets on our cars and we put ads out in local newspapers. So far, promotions via blogs and twitter definitely have brought the most traffic to our store.  We have found that networking with other vintage dealers is a great way to cross-promote.  f you come across as sincere and truly believe in what you’re doing, then it’ll go a long way – not only in the vintage community, but in the business community as well (and any other community really). Be willing to help and promote others. All the positive energy you put out there, more positive energy will come back to you, two-fold. We promise.

Q: For me, one of the most fun aspects of starting my new project is researching the market and learning about the history behind a variety of old items. How do you guys research your products to make sure you are selling your products around the right price range with the correct story behind it?

A: We’ve both been very much into vintage for about fifteen years now so there are definitely aspects to pricing and branding that we are already familiar with. But, we certainly don’t know everything. There is a wealth of information on the internet and in books specific to whatever we are researching. We’ve acquired a lot of books on the topic ranging from clothing to furniture to housewares. If we’re unsure about something, we’ll usually thumb through our resources or surf the web until we find a price we’re comfortable with.

But, overall, when pricing something, it all comes down to the label, year and condition. Those are the three MAJOR things that need to be researched before a product is given a price tag. If there’s a range of prices that we find, we usually tend to go with the average or low average. We try to be fair and not purposefully overprice things.

We might sell vintage goods, but we’re also very much vintage consumers.  And if there’s one thing that puts a bad taste in our mouth, it’s when people overprice things just to overprice them. That type of practice can alienate potential buyers and that’s exactly what you don’t want to do.

That’s a wrap for today. More greatness tomorrow and if you’re anything like me, you’re thinking WOW…these girls rock. I thought these questions were perfectly answered, specifically the answer to the patience question. Come back tomorrow for some more!

You can find these girls on Twitter, Ebay, Etsy, Facebook, and Blogger!