Running Your Own Thrift Finds Online Store

Have you ever thought about opening your own business? Working for yourself? Or even making a little money on the side alongside studying or your full-time job? What better time to take the leap, than to start over the Christmas holiday season, when most of us (thankfully!) have a week or two off work and can commit a little extra time to it around the festivities. In fact, I started this blog in the Summer holidays almost 8 years ago now for that very same reason!

Like blogging or vlogging, it is not uncommon for the passions that people have to develop into businesses from time to time. Like the old saying goes, ‘do a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life’. If, like me, one of your key passions is fashion – or you have a passion for fashion – the options going forward have never been so vast, and never before has it been so possible for people to start something on their own. Thank God for the internet!

Running your own thrift finds online store may help you follow in those footsteps, especially if you have an interest in fashion and beauty. After all, that’s how Sophia Amoruso, founder of Nasty Gal started, and look where she is now.

But how do you differentiate yourself from all other stores, and what platforms should you use to help advertise and connect with those you hope to see? Additionally, when do you begin to manage this as a business or what services can you use to make this process more convenient? These are all questions you need to ask yourself, and although I’m not an expert, I’ve gathered a couple of suggestions below.

Be Inspired

I have already mentioned Sophia Amoruso, but honestly, she is a big inspiration to me. A typical underdog character, Sophia couldn’t make any job working for someone else work for herself, struggled with relationships and finances, until she decided to follow her gut passion of styling and start sharing the cool and quirky thrift shop treasures she found on eBay. Fast forward a few years later, the business grew and now Nasty Gal is one of the biggest online fashion stores in America and the UK, owned by the same founders of Boohoo and Pretty Little thing. Her book, Girl Boss, started a movement of likeminded ‘girl bosses’ and whilst that phrase makes me cringe a little bit now, I did love it at the time and found her attitude and work ethic inspiring.

Use Online Apps

Using online apps can be a great way to message your presence, as building and coding up your own dedicated website can seem pretty damn daunting to start off with! Instead of creating a whole online shop on WordPress of Shopify, start simple. Perhaps opening an Instagram account for beautiful images of your thrift finds, or a Depop account to follow other retailers or second-hand stores can help you see those local finds surrounding you. It may also even be that running an eBay store or using apps such as VSCO can help you gain a more common grounding with the demographic you wish to reach, engage with your followers and share inspiration as well as your items for sale. 

Brand Yourself Well

Fashion is not always about branding, but it is very important. As someone who works in marketing, I know this well. While you may be selling other brands of clothing, branding yourself as a retailer can be just as fashionable as anything else. Be sure you have a clear logo with excellent use of graphic design, a memorable name, and a worthwhile mission statement. Also, consider how your chosen demographics may consider this to be worthwhile. If you design this correctly, it’s amazing to see just how much traction fashionable items can be. To this day, the launch and simplicity of Supreme’s primetime branding can be fascinating in terms how something so small could have become so big. 

Keep to a Budget

When crawling thrift stores or charity shops for those special items you wish you to sell, try and make sure you don’t get too carried away. I have a habbit of doing this on my every day shopping trips, so if you are looking to sell on your items to make a profit, it is especially important to keep in control. Set yourself a budget for the day, and make sure you don’t go over this. If there’s something you particularly want but you have already exceeded your budget, ask the shop if they will hold it for you until your next stocking up trip. If not, accept the loss and move on – self-control is a key trait to success!

Engage with Your Audience

As your following begins to grow, make sure you keep engaged with your audience. Even if you are starting an online store from scratch, the first few followers your garner can be key customers in the future – they may not be spending now, but they might one day! Make sure you ask questions on your social media, start conversations and reply to comments (both positive and negative). Staying present and connected will help your target market to trust you as a source of fashion authority, and with that, they will begin to trust your customer service and style recommendations, too.

Store Excess Items

When you begin to gain many thrift finds, this becomes a catalogue, and a catalogue of fashion needs to be well stored, hung, and maintained. This is where investing in the best storage facility and their services can help you ensure your items are protected, or they may even help you expand your operation should it get to that point. In this way, thrift finds are not just thrift finds, but a well appraised and maintained set of garments that you are seeking a home for once again, after being preserved in the best conditions. That can be a powerful thing.

With this advice, we hope you can run your own thrift finds online store with care and attention.