How To Open A Vintage Store | Guide To Starting A Vintage Business

Let’s face it, we all like shopping, wandering around the shops and boutiques of the center, looking for something new to show off, perhaps for a romantic dinner with our new flame. Getting lost in the shop windows looking at the new trends that brands pose is an activity that has always satisfied the human being, both female and male, a sort of unisex pagan procession. Well, in recent years vintage fashion has taken a strong hold. We will analyze this phenomenon together and see how to open a respectable vintage shop.

What is vintage?

First of all, vintage today defines the quality and value of a product from any previous period of at least twenty years the current one. Vintage clothing and accessories are currently very much in vogue and in recent years they have had an increase in their diffusion due to the particular characteristics that distinguish them from other previous or subsequent productions in the same sector of relevance.

When we talk about vintage fashion, it is therefore basically about clothes, accessories and shoes that date back to certain and specific periods of the past.

In fact, there is a tendency to confuse the vintage style with the vintage category. In the first case, all the products really come from a bygone era and are therefore originals from that particular historical period. In the second case, however, we are talking about clothes and accessories produced today, but which are inspired by and recall certain unmistakable styles of the past that was.

Why is vintage fashionable?

Does anyone like vintage? I would say yes! Vintage is fashionable, it is an adventure, a philosophy of life, a journey that passes through the street of class and reaches the highway of luxury vintage: the philosophy of the past, but the elitist and sophisticated one.

Initially the meaning of the term vintage was coined in a context far from that of the fashion system, in fact it was used to indicate a good vintage wine, then evolving over time to be synonymous with various types of products, ranging from vintage clothing. to vintage style jewelry, vintage furnishing accessories, vintage cars, becoming, in some cases, a real must in the relevant sector.

The history of vintage

Let’s now take a step back about thirty years, to tell the phenomenology of this rapidly expanding vintage fashion sector.

In the 90s, the fashion world began to use this particular vintage term to refer to the most iconic and significant vintage clothing designers, such as:

• Dior
• Yves Saint Laurent
• Chanel
• Louis Vuitton

The vintage meaning began to spread to illustrate used clothes and accessories dating back to the 80s and which mirrored a particular moment in the history and fashion of the twentieth century.

Vintage trend

To give life to this vintage trend were the international top models of the golden age of the fashion industry, among which we remember the wonderful Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, who wearing vintage pieces of value at official events, in the early 1990s. , began to make known this nouvelle vague of contemporary fashion.

The consecration, however, came in 2001 thanks to the appearance of the famous actress of Pretty Woman at the Oscars, who wore a splendid black and white Valentino dress by Julia Roberts from the haute coutere collection, the high fashion of 1992.

Vintage fashion is not as many superficially define old, outdated, dated, but something more, it is a philosophy of life, the search for beauty in everything that surrounds it.

What do you need to open a vintage shop?

Good. After taking a dip in the vintage past, telling the dawn of this movement that has its roots in time, let’s move on to practical things:

What if you want to open a vintage shop?
How do I open an online vintage shop?
Let’s find out together!

We assume that the purchase and sale of old or used clothes can prove to be a very profitable business both for its charm and for the fact that, at least in Italy, a vintage market that is still little explored, with plenty of room for growth.

Steps to open a vintage shop

Let’s now analyze what it takes to open a vintage shop:

• The first step is to choose the most suitable space to place the vintage store, usually a space between 50 square meters and 80 square meters is sufficient, but a lot also depends on the location of the vintage shop, it should in fact be specified that the potential of a vintage brand activity is best expressed in large cities than in the suburbs
• Then you need to identify the vintage customer target to focus on. Mostly they are young people looking for designer and original vintage garments at reasonable prices and nostalgic for vintage fashion of certain historical periods.
• Customer loyalty, as in all areas, is essential
• Another key point for being able to be successful riding the wave of vintage is getting the right vintage merchandise
• You can opt to buy on consignment from individuals, for example to pay 50% immediately and then the rest once the vintage garment is sold, or to turn to the classic suppliers of vintage items for a traditional sale, paying for the items in full. Given the particularity of the vintage products treated, the first solution is certainly the most suitable, due to the low economic risk.
• Another essential point, especially in recent times, is undoubtedly the marketing of vintage to advertise the vintage shop near me. In this sense, social media and vintage online sales sites can give you a great help, as well as creating a relationship of trust with regular customers.

How to start an online vintage shop?

In addition to physical vintage shops, there is the possibility of directly opening an online vintage shop. Let’s see how to open a vintage brand online store.

1. First of all, you need to set up a vintage e-commerce site, it should be remembered that these virtual sites are equivalent to a real physical vintage shop, so you will need to open a VAT number, register with the business register and apply for the start of a new business, as precisely for any other type of business.
2. After completing all the bureaucratic part, we move on to the purchase of vintage goods. You can opt to buy vintage wholesale or, to lower initial costs, focus on vintage markets and trusted shops.
3. Subsequently, once you have collected a good number of vintage pieces to place on the site, you need to photograph the vintage items for sale trying to take clear, sharp and well detailed photos, perhaps from different angles and pay attention to the details.
4. Then upload the photos of the vintage items to sell on the site, entering the price and shipping costs.
5. Another key aspect of this type of vintage business is the shipping of the aforementioned items. In fact, many pieces of vintage clothing are extremely delicate, this requires an additional investment in the packaging material (sheets of tissue paper, bubble wrap and resistant canned goods) necessary to ensure that the vintage goods arrive without damage to the recipient.

Well dear readers of Financial Empires, now you have all the information you need on how to open a vintage shop, to embark on your adventure and start your own vintage shop Italy, both physical and online.

Financial Empires, The Editorial Staff

© REPRODUCTION RESERVED