Starting a Vintage Reselling Business: Our Journey and Top Tips

Welcome to the very first episode of the Gem Finders Podcast! 

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Episode Transcript: 

Amber:
Welcome to the very first episode of The Gem Finders Podcast! I'm Amber.

Shaun:
And I am Shaun.

Amber:
And we have zero plan. We don't know what we're doing, and we're gonna figure it out along the way. But somehow, I've gone from selling ten-dollar Forever 21 dresses that I wore in high school to growing a business that supports both of us full-time. I am excited to get our story out there and hopefully you'll learn some things from us along the way. Maybe.

Shaun:
Somehow I got roped into selling vintage glass and brass and stone items, which I never had any interest in whatsoever.

Amber:
And you spend so much of your life antiquing now.

Amber:
So I guess the story really begins. The first few years of our relationship, finances were rough. Because you had had eBay experience before me.

Shaun:
Just the first few years of our relationship finances?

Amber:
No, but especially those years—things have only just begun to financially kind of turn around. But so I remember literally...

Shaun:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to not answer your question—yes, I did have some eBay experience, mostly buying. I didn’t sell a ton, but I was into action figures my entire life. So, I would go through phases of buying tons of action figures and then being broke and having to sell them, so I had some eBay experience from that.

Amber:
So I remember literally being in our old house and looking around and being like, What can we sell? Because we needed a few more hundred dollars to be able to pay all our bills.
And our parents would give us stuff.  Our parents would be like, “You wanna sell this?”

Shaun:
Yeah. My mom still gives us some stuff occasionally to see if I want to sell it.

Amber:
I just recently told my mom that, like, I’m good. I just want to focus on the vintage stuff. But so we were just listing things left and right, and then I really ramped up my reselling when we were getting ready to move. I was actually getting ready to move south, and that’s another story for another day. But I was getting rid of everything I owned because I really wanted to move to Charleston, and I was just listing everything. I was listing jackets and jeans and shoes and purses and stuff I didn’t even think people were going to buy. And then quickly that turned into $3,000, and I was like, Okay, there is some potential to reselling. And it was something that was easy. It was something that I could spend 10 minutes doing a day or three hours doing a day, and when I was consistent with it, I saw money come in, and that was really nice.

Shaun:
It's always nice to see money coming no matter how it's coming in.

Amber:
So fast forward a little bit of time, we ended up buying our first house in January of 2021. And everything that we had—all the money we had—went to the down payment of the house, so we had very little that we were working with when we moved in. So we were going to estate sales and thrift stores and flea markets and trying to find the most budget-friendly house things that we could. And while we were there, I was falling in love with all of the other pretty things that caught my eye. I really liked the glassware, and I liked finding home decor when I should have been focusing on furniture. But there are a lot of things that caught my eye, and I definitely still needed to make some extra money. And I started listing items we found on eBay because we definitely couldn't fit it all in our house, and there were a lot of things I was finding that didn’t really match what I was trying to turn the house into. And so I figured I would just start listing them and see what happened. So I listed them on eBay and Poshmark and Mercari, and I was—I tried to list at least a few things a day.

Amber:
I lost my train of thought.

Shaun:
And while she was doing this, I had a job at the time, and I eventually quit that job. And I was just selling my action figures and video games and things that—some of them were from my childhood, some of them that I had collected more recently. But I just kind of felt like I kind of outgrew the hobby, and I needed money too, so I started doing that. So we were doing the same thing but in totally different categories. And I think that’s kind of maybe why transitioning to helping you was a little bit smoother—because I kind of already had some experience and kind of knew what I was doing. But packing up glassware is way different than packing up action figures. It takes much longer, and you have to be so much more careful and use so many more packing supplies.

Amber:
So shipping is rough. Next step from there was I saw a good amount of money coming in from eBay and Poshmark and Mercari, and that’s really when I realized, What if I made this a business? What if I really started taking it seriously? Because I had tried a variety of different businesses in the past, and I had some success in some places, but nothing that really stuck, nothing that really felt like it brought in enough income or enough joy to support my life. So once I decided that I wanted to take things seriously, I was going to start a website. And in my head, I was like, Well, I should start social media at the same time that I start the website. So I actually made an Instagram account first, and I started following the world of reselling on Instagram. And before I even had a chance to get the website up, I was just like, Well, let me try Instagram. I’m gonna list some things on Instagram, show the products I have, and we’ll see what happens. And I was not expecting it to take off, but it did. It did.

Shaun:
It did.

Amber:
And so much so that I didn’t even create the website until at least a year later. That was in March—February or March of this year that we launched it, right?

Shaun:
I think so.

Amber:
I spent about a year reselling on the platforms after we’d moved in. And then I probably spent about a year on Instagram, and then about another year—roughly another year—before I started the website.

Shaun:
But the Instagram didn’t take off right away. You made it sound like you post on Instagram and everything instantly blew.

Amber:
No, I did not. That’s not the case, no. But I did make enough sales where it was keeping me busy but not necessarily supporting me. And I definitely hustled for sales. I hustled to build an audience. I saw the potential, and I dedicated a lot of time into Instagram, which I think is what has really taken the business to the next level.

Shaun:
That’s where—even with the website launch—that’s where most of our sales come from. And I think that it helps having a following like that on a social media platform because you’re able to connect on a more personal level and interact with customers one-on-one. And I think that that more personal connection brings in more repeat customers, and it kind of creates more loyal customers than if you’re just buying something off a website. It’s a much different experience.

Amber:
Absolutely. And that’s actually one of the reasons that I wanted to start Instagram after eBay and all the other platforms—because I really liked selling, but there was no personal connection. I really didn’t have a lot of repeat customers. There weren’t people who were paying attention to what I found. It was just, I happened to have an item that they were looking for, they bought it, and then I never heard from them again. So even though those platforms are nice because they expose you to a lot of people, I think that the stability of the business really came in when I started building a community and a following around vintage reselling and vintage items on Instagram. And then about—about a year and a half ago, I was just having more orders come in than I could handle by myself. I couldn’t ship them fast enough. I was really stressed out, had some trips coming up with my family, and I wanted to be able to keep the business going while traveling. And that’s when you really stepped in and started taking over a lot of packing and shipping.

Shaun:
My primary roles are inventory and packing—wrapping the items. You take care of the actual shipping process, but whenever—when you had to take those trips, that’s whenever I started doing a couple of lives. And that’s when I felt like I was really becoming a part of the business, I guess. Because it’s one thing to just be doing tasks behind the scenes like wrapping and the inventory and stuff, but I think once I got on camera and was interacting with the customers one-on-one and in the live sales, that kind of made me feel more like I was actually a part of the business and not, I guess, just like an employee. It made me feel more connected to it anyway.

Amber:
He had helped on and off when the work was there and I was overwhelmed, and I would pay him to help with packing and shipping. And then things slowed down, and then I couldn’t pay another person—I just had to pay me. So he helped on and off, and then it was when we started live sales on Instagram that I was really able to start paying both of us.

Shaun:
Because that is when things really picked up sales-wise. You’re making enough to support you and to pay the bills and to get by. But once we actually started doing the live sales consistently, that’s when we started making way more money from a single live sale than we ever thought we would make - more in a single live sale than we thought we would make in a week, at least me. I don’t want to speak for you on that, but I never thought that we would make as much as we made in some of these live sales and in three to four hours sometimes. To me, that’s crazy.

Amber:
And it’s so crazy because, like I said before, I had tried so many different avenues of owning a business because that path always looked appealing to me—to be in control and to be my own boss and have the flexibility and also the potential to make an impact that comes with owning a business. But nothing stuck quite like this. And it’s really funny to me because I was so strategic about so many of the other businesses that I started. And for a while, I was in marketing and PR, so I really had a business mindset for a lot of different things. And then I started this, and I didn’t have time for any of that. I have just been flying by the seat of my pants—is that the right way to say that—

Shaun:
It’s one of the sayings that you always use. Yes.

Amber:
So I have just been flying through this, just trying to make it through every week and just doing whatever I can. And it’s crazy because this is the business that I’ve had the most success at, and it is the one that I have—I work really hard, but there wasn’t a lot of trying to make success happen—it just all kind of naturally unfolded. Which was really eye-opening because if you would have asked me before this, I would have said to you, Well, in order to start a vintage shop, you need a social media presence and a logo and branding and a website and all of these things—this is a plan that you should have. But going into this, I had none of that.

Shaun:
Desperation can make crazy things happen.

Amber:
I was literally just desperate. And now it is about so much more than the money because we have connected on such a deep level with so many of our customers, and it is really fulfilling to be able to give these items a new life and to get them in the hands of somebody else. And so now there is a bigger purpose to the business, but at the time, it was just like, How do I bridge that gap in money between what I’m making and what we have to pay in bills and the mortgage? So you’re right—desperation can really bring things out.

Shaun:
It’s crazy that I feel like the personal connection to the people too, but I get this weird personal connection attachment to the items themselves too because I’m going through the process of inventorying...

Amber:
He's never shared this with me before...

Shaun:
But, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I was gonna save it for the podcast. Going through the process of inventorying and cleaning the items—sometimes when we get these items, they’re filthy, and you don’t know if they’re gonna clean up or what they’re gonna look like when they’re finally clean. And going through that process, and when you take one of those dirty items and clean it up, and it looks brand new—to me, I feel like a sense of pride and attachment to those items—all of them, in a way. Because there is a lot of work that goes into the inventory and the cleaning process. Every item that we get, it goes through an extensive process before it gets photographed and listed and sent to the customers. Throughout that process, I just feel like there’s this journey that we go through, and this attachment that kind of develops with all the items along the way. That’s another reason why I think we take a lot of pride in our packing, and that’s another reason why we haven’t really—this year, I don’t think we’ve had anything actually break that wasn’t already damaged.

Amber:
We had one item that was damaged that broke, but it was already damaged, and the customer knew that. And then we had another item where it was glued together, and it came apart—two items like that—nothing broke.

Shaun:
So we haven’t had anything actually break. And I take pride in that. I know you take pride in that. That’s another reason why—because I get that attachment to them. I don't want to go through all of that work of cleaning this up and making it look good and the presentation, whether it’s on the live sale or photographs on the website. I don’t want that to be all for nothing, and then it breaks along the way. That’s just sad.

Amber:
That leads into my first piece of advice for you: if you are starting an online vintage shop, prioritize shipping at all costs. Because I think that that has been a huge reason that people have continued to shop from us, and we’ve built a lot of loyalty with customers because they know that there’s a very small chance—obviously, things do happen every once in a while—but there’s a very small chance that their items from us are going to break in transit. And they know how much pride and how much dedication and how much we invest in shipping.

Shaun:
We spend a lot of money on packing supplies—a lot.

Amber:
But it keeps people coming back. So, if you were thinking about exploring this, it's worth it to prioritize your shipping and your packaging.

Shaun:
It is—and nothing makes me happier than when we get comments about—people say that your packages would survive a plane crash. Stuff like that—that feels good. Whenever you see comments like that, it makes it—it makes it feel worth it because it takes a long time to wrap up an order, typically.

Amber:
And then something else that I think is really important if you are just starting your journey or if you’re thinking about starting a shop is consistency. I think that that is one thing that has carried me through every single aspect of this business, even since my eBay days, is I always try to list a minimum of one to two items a day. If I couldn’t list 10 items a day, it was fine—I tried to list one to two. And same thing with social media. I have really tried to be consistent with showing up, and my content is very similar. I put very little mental thought into my content because a lot of it is filming hauls and doing the same things over and over with new items, and I think that that’s just fine. You don’t have to get—obviously, getting creative with content is really fun and exciting to do, but it’s not—it’s not a must-have. You don’t have to do that. You really can just show up and build something because that consistency is so important. When people see you every week and we’re consistent with our live sales—they know that they’re gonna see us 8 PM Eastern Standard Time every Wednesday. And sometimes life happens, but we’ve had to only move maybe one or two.

Shaun:
It’s been very few since we started, though.

Amber:
Consistency is so important. In every aspect of the business—consistently bringing in fresh inventory, consistently posting, consistently listing—consistency just across the board. That is—if there’s one thing that I could share with you, it is: be consistent.

Shaun:
Especially if you’re selling on a social media platform. I think that that is doubly important because the way that all of the social media platforms are and how they correlate the algorithms and decide what they are or aren't going to show to people. The more consistent you are, the better chance you have of your page, your listings, or just your post getting shown to the people that you want them to be shown to, because it's so easy to get lost in the shuffle of anything. It doesn't even just apply to vintage selling. If you are consistent with it, there are so many other people out there doing the same or similar things that it's so easy to get lost in that.

Amber:
And don't even worry about the views. Don't aim for having a video that gets 200,000 views. Even if your video gets 100 views, you only need that one right person—that item catches their eye—and then to buy it to make it worth posting that reel or that TikTok or that post. So you don't need a ton of views or a ton of engagement. You really just need to target the right people and keep showing up, because eventually, the people who have your style and like your items—they're going to find you if you keep showing up true to yourself over and over again.

I also cannot emphasize enough the importance of setting your shop up in a way that works for you. When we started this, financially our lives were a mess, and mentally I was not in a great place. So I didn't have time for any extra stresses. I needed a business that was going to be easy. I needed things that felt within my mental capacity, and that's what I created.

And there are so many different ways to do that when it comes to reselling. Don't get caught up in what one person is doing and how they had success for them because all you need to do is figure out a way to set up your business in a way that you can be consistent.

From the beginning, I started live sales. I did a couple, and they were so nerve-racking, and nobody showed up. And it just didn't feel good. It felt like a lot of prep work for very little reward, and I was like, you know what? I am not going to do live sales—even though at the time, it felt like everybody else was doing live sales. I was like, that's not working for me, so I didn't do it.

And on that same note, I'm probably never going to do a vintage market because setting up a booth seems so extremely overwhelming to me. And there are so many different places to resell. You can resell at a booth in an antique store, at flea markets, on marketplace platforms, or have your own website. There are so many different ways to do this that you get to choose what works for you.

And when you start from the beginning, building a business in a way that feels like it's within your capacity and something that you can continue showing up at, I think that's really powerful and will keep you going. And I think that that is one of the reasons that this business stuck—because I really tried to focus on what's going to be realistic in my life right now. What can I do that is not going to feel like too much or too overwhelming? And it's definitely overwhelming in other ways, but I at least feel like I set it up in a way where this felt like it worked with my life instead of against it.

Shaun:
Ever since I've known you, you've been determined to have a successful business. You never wanted to work like a regular job. You were always set on building your own thing and having that support you and eventually letting you travel and do all the things you want to do.

Amber:
We have been together for a really long time—a long time. And so you have seen the many businesses that I have tried, the ones that I've had a little bit of success at, and the ones that I have failed at. So from an outsider's perspective who has seen the whole journey, what do you think it was about this one that stuck and led to us getting to where we are now?

Shaun:
That you didn't overthink it. She is the queen of overthinking everything.

Amber:
He's not wrong—literally everything.

Shaun:
And I think to an extent that's good. I think it's good to have a plan and a roadmap for what you want your business to look like. I mean, I went through many steps of that with you in several different businesses—I don't even remember how many or how long that took because it was so long ago. But I think there are two things. One is that you didn't overthink it. Like I said earlier, desperation didn't give you the chance to—it was like, "I need to do this now," and you didn't really have time to wait and map it out and set up a plan.

The other thing is just overall how authentic and genuine you are. That resonates with people—it comes through in social media content and live sales. I think that's another reason why Instagram has been so successful. You're able to have those one-on-one interactions, but you're also able to show your true personality rather than just selling on a website or platform. You're able to show people how passionate you are about this and I think that everybody kind of feels that even when I hear you talk about them. Sometimes it still feels like you're as excited to talk about them when you're selling them as when you saw them the first time in the store. That excitement I think just like it comes through and it resonates with everybody. So, I think it was those two things. That's not even to say that in your other businesses you weren't genuine and authentic, but I don't think you ever had this sort of chance on this platform to showcase it

When I met you, I know exactly what you were doing, you were putting events together, you were doing the PR stuff. I think that when you're with clients in those sort of businesses you're able to show that but on this you're able to show that to so many more people at a time. I think that sets you apart from so many other people because again there are so many vintage sellers and resellers in general. It's a very overcrowded field. It's not like they're hard to find they're everywhere, but I think that that is one of the key things that kind of sets you apart

Amber:
I don't know… we'll see.

Shaun:
You shot in a lot of really cool locations.

Amber:
What does that mean?

Shaun:
Your backdrops for those videos were really impressive.

Amber:
Most of them are at our old house. If you look at the shelves in some of those videos, they're much different than the shelves that are back here now. But… so I really have tried, and I have—I have tried hard at a lot of things, and I have failed at many different things. And I do really think that all of those failures have gotten me here.

I think that the blogging and being on social media really gave me the insight on how to build a social media platform for this business. And looking back, everything that I tried and failed at really does come full circle, because I feel like I have used everything that I've learned in this one successful business.

But it was—it was a journey. And financially, it's been a journey.

We have really crawled our way out of the trenches.

Shaun:
There were many months where I didn’t know how—we were on the last day to get our mortgage paid or a certain bill paid, and somehow—somehow, we dug it out. That was like a common occurrence—especially in the old house. It was literally the last day, and somehow we had to make it happen. I've always wanted to have a business and be my own boss because I hate being an employee. I'm not a bad employee—I just don't like taking direction from other people, especially when it doesn’t make sense to me. If you're gonna tell me to do something, please explain why I should be doing it and why it makes sense.

Amber:
There’s more to unpack there—another day.

Shaun:
There's a lot more to unpack there.

Shaun:
But… so I was a delivery driver for quite some time—six years. That was the last real job that I had before I quit. And then that’s when I started selling the action figures and then transitioned to this.

That was a rough, rough, rough period of life. I was making some money, but not nearly enough to support everything that we had going on. And I don’t think it was enough for the work that I was doing.

And then when I quit there, I didn’t really have a plan. So that was… that was interesting—trying to scrape by for those… well, I was probably a year or so before I really transitioned into this. So we've—we've had a lot of rough times. And I was always really scared to make that jump—starting my own business. And that's kind of what I hoped to do after I quit the delivery job and started selling the action figures, but it wasn’t moving at the pace that I hoped it would.

And now this kind of feels like… it’s not—it’s not my business, but it feels almost the same because I have that freedom. I have that flexibility in me schedule to work when I need to and also do personal things when I need to. I don’t have to worry about scheduling vacations and calling out of work whenever I need to do something.

So it’s not exactly the same, but it’s very similar. And it just feels good, I guess, to finally be in that position—and in a position that’s closer to where I have always wanted to be.

Amber:
And I think that that is one of the reasons why anybody should try reselling. Whether you want to make two to three hundred dollars a month, two to three thousand dollars a month, or twenty thousand dollars a month, I really feel like there is a spot in this reselling world for everybody and anybody.

And especially with the state of today's economy, the secondhand market is larger than ever and on more radars. And you really—you really can make it work for your life. We work all the time—we work so hard to pull this off.

Shaun:
But it's literally just us. We do everything. Like, we have—we have nobody else to assist or help us with anything.

Amber:
Our niece?

But even though it is a lot of work, if you're gonna jump into this, you do need to be ready for that. It’s a lot of work, but the flexibility is amazing. The fact that we're not behind a computer all day—that we can go out and find items and source—and that balance between computer work at home and something exciting to get us out of the house feels really nice. It is so nice to be able to work from home.

I have always struggled with anxiety and depression, and that's one of the reasons that I was like, I don't want a full-time job, because I can't imagine having to show up to a 9 to 5 on a day that I am struggling. And that was one of the reasons that I've always wanted to create something for myself that would support me.

And I feel like this business has really done that—even when I am still struggling. I can pack boxes—like, that feels doable even when nothing else does. If I don’t feel like I can create content, if I don’t feel like I can be on social media that day, there is always something about this business that I feel capable of doing.

And that has been really powerful for me—whether it is listing or packing or creating content—there are different things that I get to choose what I want to do and what I want to work on. And that’s been—that’s been game-changing for my career and for being able to make money and support me.

Shaun:
Support both of us.

Amber:
And now the fact that this business is something that supports both of us still blows my mind. It doesn't feel real. 

Shaun:
It is wild to think about. But we also haven’t had time to think about it, because everything has moved so quickly. Once we started the live sales and stuff picked up, that was it—we had no time.

We have talked about so many other things that we wanted to do. We wanted to start this for—I don't even know how long now

Amber:
Months, maybe even a year.

Shaun:
Probably close to a year. We talked about this a long time ago, and there’s a lot of other things that we talked about that we want to do. But it’s like we can just never find the time, because what we're doing now with the business keeps us so busy.

I feel like I can never even get caught up—let alone get ahead—to feel like I have any extra time to work on anything else. So it’s—it’s a good problem to have, for sure. But I also feel like there is so much more opportunity for us to grow in other ways that I would really like to find the time to explore those avenues as well.

Amber:
And we—we work all the time, and we are still just making enough money to support ourselves. So now we’re in a position where we’re trying to figure out what’s next. How can we make some passive income? How can we grow the business so that we can take a little bit of a step back, breathe a little bit, and spend some more time taking care of ourselves rather than just working every day?

It's interesting to be on the other end of that after struggling financially for so long. But I’m so grateful that there are so many sales coming in and that we're having a fresh problem to solve. Feels good to have a new problem.

Shaun:
It's a different type of problem—not like the frantic, stressful are we gonna make it problem. It feels like, How can we grow now? You said we're definitely not rich or anything like that—we’re making enough to pay the bills.

Amber:
Rich in love. 

Shaun:
If you say so. It just feels like a better problem. I guess it's a better kind of problem to have.

Amber:
But we also—not only did we struggle financially leading up to this business—but even once this business started, and once I kind of started to get the ball rolling, there were still so many months where I would have some sales but not enough sales. And I was always trying to think about, What can I share? What piece of content can I do? What can I do differently to make some more money this month?

I was always trying to think about, How can we make sure that this brings in enough to support me?—at the time, because it wasn't you yet. And I think that is another really beautiful thing about reselling. It's like, there’s literally always more that you can do. If you need to make more money, you just list more stuff or have another live sale.

If something isn’t selling on Instagram, I haven't done this recently, but I could always list it on eBay or Poshmark or Mercari or Marketplace. There are so many different ways that you can be flexible to really create something that is going to work for your life—as long as you're willing to put in the time and effort.

Shaun:
Yeah. I think the big thing is the time. All of that does sound great—that it’s an option—but it is hard to find the time to do stuff, especially if you're working another job and you're doing this on the side. It's hard to find that time, and you know, some of these tasks are pretty time-consuming.

I guess it also depends on what level you're trying to do this at. You can take pictures of the items on your phone and upload them straight to the sites. If you want to use eBay and stuff like that, you can do that relatively quickly.

If you're doing it like the way you do—taking professional photos on the DSLR camera and then editing them and listing them on the website—that can be a very time-consuming process.

So I guess there are different levels to how you do things—how you want to do things. And I guess that's another good thing about it, though, is that there are different routes you can take with this. You mentioned earlier that if you just want to make a couple hundred extra dollars or something like that, that's an option. You don't have to go through all the stuff that we go through—you can do a much simpler process to get there.

Starting that off—it’s kind of a negative, but I guess it kind of turns into a positive at the same time. You can do it however you want, and you can spend as little or as much time on it as you have available.

Amber:
All you really need to get started is a phone, some inventory—some things you don’t want anymore—and to pick a platform that you want to start on. That’s really all you need to get started. Let us know what you think about this episode.

I know we covered a lot, so let us know in the comments what you want us to dive into more—what aspects of our journey, our story, our struggles, and our failures you would like to hear more about.

And we’ll make sure that we create some upcoming episodes on those topics so that we can get into all of this for you—and hopefully give you some insight along the way.

Shaun:
And eventually, our production will be much better than it currently is. I promise.

Amber:
We're just working with what we have for now, and we're going to see how this goes.

Shaun:
So thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for listening to us if you made it this far! And let's go find some vintage!