What goes into Vintage Reselling
Simple answer - a lot more than American Pickers makes you think. All vintage and antique vendors wish it was as easy as showing up having a plethora of products to choose from and sending it back to a store/mall.
For vintage and antique vendors, usually the hunting/sourcing process is the most fun in this process they do the following:
Driving from various locations including stores, estate/garage/auction sales all weekend hunting and negotiating, in Canada, you cannot miss a weekend as our hunting time is short! 99% of the time you do not show up to a garage/estate/private sale with a plethora of product ready to be picked. Most of the time it is a hand full of items at this sale, and a handful at the next. It takes the vendors time to collect and source products.
The veteran vendors have a wealth of knowledge on pricing and quality, the more you know about multiple markets the better off the seller. This takes time and a lot of mistakes on previous purchases to learn more about the products.
Vendors now a days need to be active on social media channels promoting their booths, finds, online stores and so much more.
Through many years, they have gained knowledge and expertise on how to fix, repair and clean their products. Cleaning and repairing can take as much if not longer than finding an item.
After hunting and picking items a vintage vendor then:
Takes the time to take apart items and restore them - from a simple cleaning to the extreme of removing every nut and bolt, finding the missing piece, cleaning it all up, and putting it back together.
Spends time pricing and cataloguing items
MALL/POP UP Creates an aesthetically pleasing vintage booth to display items for sale, interacting with customers and educating purchasers on the items they found and what they are.
ONLINE photograph, measure, description, shipping etc info on the listing. then from there they must deal with customers and ship the item appropriately. They take the risk of also an item not arriving in one piece.
The vendors who collect and sell vintage and antiques do it because they love it, they have a passion for restoration and preservation of the past. For me, it’s the color - I love all the bright colors that add so much happiness and joy to our lives. The joy a customer has on their face when they find ‘that piece’ they’ve been searching for.