5 mistakes vintage sellers don't know they're making

This applied to other sellers online, too.

Feb 22, 2024

Created by Cococo with DALL·E, an AI system by OpenAI

I've learned a lot about business from running Idee, so I have no regrets about quitting it.

After studying 56 vintage sellers online, here are the typical mistakes most of them make:

MISTAKE 1: Assuming that buyers purchase vintage items because of the quality (and not the price)

Vintage sellers often emphasize the quality of their garments when marketing their products, hoping it will help them sell their leather jackets at a £150 price point.

While quality is important, price is equally important — if not more so.

The problem with trying to sell items at £150 is that you target women who have enough money to buy high-quality items, new. These women shop at Miista, Ganni, Maje, etc.

And while they would spend £150 on a second-hand item, it would likely be a Burberry trench coat, not an unbranded leather jacket that they can buy for £30 on eBay.

Vintage buyers are financially comfortable, but they are not rich.

Your main value as a vintage seller comes from finding stuff people already buy and selling them at a reasonable price.

So, you are in the business of sourcing, really.

Instead of buying a £30 item on eBay to sell it for £150 on your website, you need to figure out where to buy the same item for £5 to sell it for £45.

The sellers below have nailed it:

🦄 Reign Vintage – they source regularly from southern Italy (Caserta most likely). They sell online and have physical shops in Soho, London, and Oxford. Most items at between £35-40

🦄 One Scoop Store – the owner Holly Watkins used to work in fashion, and I assume that she gets the stock super cheaply or free through industry connections, regularly. They sell highly sought-after designer brands like Ganni, Celine, Miista at a very reasonable price. Most of the items are priced between £20-40, and sell out super quickly.

🦄 Beyond Retro – dominates the vintage fashion scene in the UK. With 7 stores across London, Brighton, and Bristol (as well as online), they have certainly figured out their sourcing to keep this business profitable and growing.

MISTAKE 2: Pricing at a premium without the ability to maintain a premium image

Premium prices require premium marketing and PR.

Unless you sell luxury brands, it will be difficult to sell unbranded vintage items at a premium price if you don’t have connections in fashion PR or money to set up a sleek website, photoshoots, and ads.

Worn Vintage founder Lovisa Källström is an ex-fashion PR professional from Sweden whose leather jackets are worn by Hailey Bieber, Gigi Hadid, and Mathilda Djerf.

She charges £573 for an unbranded vintage leather jacket, and it works for her.

If you don’t have money or industry connections, you are better off targeting a mass market at £25-£45 per item.

MISTAKE 3: Relying on Instagram to sell directly

Too many sellers rely too heavily on Instagram to reach customers.

Unless you have a big advertising budget, Instagram is the worst place to rely on for sales.

Here’s why:

a. Most people don’t use Instagram to buy anything

People use IG to see what their friends are up to, get inspiration, or be entertained.

If people decide to follow your shop, they are probably inspired or entertained.

They may buy from you in the future, but they may not.

Don’t waste too much time trying to sell directly on IG, especially if you are a small business with limited resources trying to make a living.

You are better off using Etsy – a platform people actually use when they are in the mood to shop (or Depop, if your target audience is Gen Z with a limited budget).

In 1.5 years of running my online vintage business, I only sold 10 items from Instagram, while 123 sales came from Etsy with way less effort and higher margins.

b. Most of your IG followers don’t see your Posts/Reels/Stories anyway

I know a vintage seller who has 12K followers, but only around 3%-5% of those actually see her organic content.

So, essentially, she spent years and $$$ building a following in the hope that these people would see her upcoming drops for free. However, the Instagram algorithm had a different plan.

Once the platform saw that she could afford to pay for visibility, they wanted her to keep paying for the ‘privilege’.

Not a sustainable way to build a business, in my opinion.

I’d rather build an email list than social media followers.

You own your email list. You can speak to people directly. And it’s free to reach them.

c. Instagram can suspend your account without any warning.

Instagram can suspend your account at any time for multiple reasons.

Never be in a position where your livelihood depends solely on someone else.

Build a business you can control.

MISTAKE 4: Running FB/IG ads to promote your one-off drops

Most vintage sellers are not businesspeople, nor are they experienced marketers or advertisers.

What they do is let Instagram optimize their ads for audiences similar to their current followers.

This is done directly via the app with one click, you don’t even have to login to Meta Business Manager (or know anything about advertising).

I wouldn’t recommend using it, it’s a waste of money.

The most important thing about ads is getting your cost-per-click or cost-per-action as low as you possibly can.

This takes time and skills. You need to get 50-100 conversions (someone buying something) on your website within 7 days to "tickle the Meta pixel".

It can take months to learn what types of people buy from you (these are not always the obvious demographics you think of).

But once you have that information, you will sell on autopilot. It becomes easy, cheap, and predictable.

You can then allocate 20% of your monthly profits into advertising and let them run in the background without worrying about wasting money.

If you can’t commit to this process, wait until you can.

There is no point in advertising/boosting your drops for 5 days, and then stopping.

MISTAKE 5: Overlooking the importance of a physical store as you expand

If you’re in any garment business, sooner or later, you’ll need a physical store.

Many sellers put it off because of the commitment.

But think about a shop this way:

Instead of paying for storage while spending money on online ads, you could have a shop that serves 2 purposes:

a) boosts sales while
b) acting as a storage solution for your ever-expanding inventory.

This move not only optimizes your storage costs but also reduces online advertising expenses.

I’d be interested to know where you feel stuck in your business or what you want to improve on. Ask me anything in the comments.

👋 Hey, I’m Tanya. A creative multipotentialite with multiple income streams. Join Slash Career newsletter to learn how to live a good multi-hyphenate life. I cover entrepreneurship, money, creativity, and personal development.

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