In today's diversified entrepreneurial wave, niche retro businesses are quietly blooming with unique charm. Today, we walked into Rose Vintage, a vintage clothing store in Xiamen, to explore the owner’s exciting vintage business in his spare time.
Zeng Zeng has been passionate about fashion and dressing since he was a child. He started sharing his everyday outfits when he was in middle school and high school. During his college years, he became more active on the Douban platform. After graduation, she went to London, England, to study fashion management, where she encountered vintage and became deeply fascinated. After returning to China to work for a year, due to physical reasons, she accidentally cooperated with a friend who had settled abroad and started a vintage store business journey. This happened 5 years ago, and it was also the 5th year since she bid farewell to the traditional working life.
Walking into Rose Vintage House, bohemian or denim-style clothing at the entrance complements the wooden wardrobe. On the display rack on the right, sanitized shopping clothing is arranged according to color series. There are also a dazzling array of trinkets nearby. The sofa area was originally used for taking photos. Later, due to the increase in clothing, it became a storage place for off-season clothing. Vintage, originated from Japanese, generally refers to old clothes that are at least 20 years old. Most of the real vintage clothes were produced from the 1950s to the 1960s to the 2000s, and most of the clothes in the store were bought from Europe from the 1960s to the 1990s. Retro clothing.
In the early days of starting a business, Zeng Zeng had no grand business plan. Instead, he started in a small room at home, buying hangers, fabric and a tripod, and first selling forty or fifty found clothes in an online store. After receiving good feedback, we designed the store logo and decorated it simultaneously. I borrowed the decoration fee from my parents and will pay it back slowly in the future. At the same time, we use the WeChat ID library accumulated from doing purchasing in the UK to publish retro-related articles on Douban and other platforms to attract traffic to the store.
In order to find high-quality products, I spent a lot of time looking for shopping channels online, such as various websites and large foreign vintage warehouses. In addition, we also enrich our supply through second-hand websites, videos of foreign buyers we know, and our own overseas shopping trips. However, warehouses that wholesale by the kilogram are prone to mistakes, so a discerning eye for product selection and a like-minded customer base are crucial. She also cooperates with friends she met while studying abroad in the UK, Germany, Italy and other places and settled there, asking them to help search for goods, take photos and select them.
The store’s traffic mainly relies on online platforms. Douban and Weibo have attracted many customers, and now Xiaohongshu has become an important channel. In addition, participating in the offline market from 2018 to 2019 attracted some offline customers, of which 20% to 30% were introduced by friends.
When vintage clothing arrives at the store, it is first unpacked and either dry-cleaned or washed depending on the fabric. They are then ironed and sorted, defects marked and repaired, and dimensions measured. The entire process takes about a week. The store also has a refrigerator-like disinfection and dry cleaning equipment to ensure that clothes are clean and hygienic.
Zeng Zeng’s working hours were irregular. On average, I arrive at the store around 1:30 pm every day, shoot or receive customers when there is sunshine, and go home at night to work on new works, editing and other work.
During the business process, she was frustrated because customers did not recognize the value of vintage clothing, but now she has learned to separate personal emotions from work, realizing that this is just a different positioning perspective.
In terms of income, there have been fluctuations due to the impact of the epidemic, but overall it is in a healthy and profitable state, and the income is higher than when working. However, it’s difficult to make a lot of money opening a small vintage store. Many vintage store owners increase profits by creating new accessories or mass-producing clothing inspired by vintage items. Regarding career development, although Zeng Zeng did not take the path of brand expansion or expansion, he still had self-doubt and confusion, thinking about the definition of success and the future direction. Eventually, she adjusted her mentality and realized the way she really wanted to live and work, and realized that she could do what she liked and support herself.
In this fast-paced era, Zeng Zeng wrote his wonderful life with love and persistence in the small world of Xiamen's ancient costumes. If you are also interested in retro clothing, you might as well go to Rose Vintage, and you may be able to encounter unique beauty. Everyone is welcome to share your views on retro clothing in the comment area, and don’t forget to share this article with friends around you who also love life and exploration!
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