A Comprehensive Guide To Selling Vintage Clothing Online On eBay Or A Website

I have had my website hosted through Yahoo Webhosting for nearly 2 years now, and I have only learned how to use the marketing portion properly in the past 6 months, so I am going to share the valuable lessons I have learned to make my website a success using Yahoo!

Building your website is the simple part, and this is the part most new website owners fear. Yahoo makes it easy by providing you with a free basic cut and paste website builder. It is really easy to use once you learn where everything is, which just takes a little playing around

Marketing is the thing that took the time to learn. It took more time for me because I do not want to pay for anything. Everything is free, there are just companies who charge you to do it to make it more convenient for you, which are not bad, they just cost more than free which is a problem with me :)

Using Yahoo Webhosting sitebuilder program, it is extremely important that each and every time you build a new page, you take the time to set the page properties. Part of the page properties are your tags that search engines crawl to find your contact. Each page has a title. This title includes your keywords for your main pages or individual item pages.

Listing each item for sale on it's own separate page bensfits you because you can title each page with the specific item's keywords so search engines can pull that specific item on a search.

This dress on my website shows the method I use for individual items. If you right click on the background of the page and select properties, you will see that the page title is at the top. When you search for a dress like this on Google, the individual page will come up for the buyer to see. I have placed a link to my website's homepage on each item page so a new looker can navigate to the homepage of my website

Page properties is the #1 marketing tool you have. This sets the Meta-tags for the page without having to actually know HTML. Titling each page correctly gives you a large headstart on the marketing process of your website and sets the stage for building a sitemap and future marketing which I will cover later

I have used Yahoo Webhosting for many years with absolute success! Check out the link below for a special trial offer!

Vintage Fashion Guild Forums

Auction Bytes Vintage Clothing Discussion Forum

The Fedora Lounge

The Fedora Lounge Powder Room - Ladies Only!

eBay Vintage Clothing & Accessories Board

Some questions I get often.....

• Where do you find all those clothes?
• How did you get started?
• Why do you do it?
• What do you do for a real job?
• It seems so easy just to take pictures of clothing and sell it...is it??

To clear it all up right now....taking pictures of clothing and listing is only 10% of the overall work, and I know sellers that would say that percentage is even lower.

Everyone has their own style, and I am just basing all of these explanations on my style. For example, I do not use live models. I have thought about it, however I love my classic appeal of the dress form...and in the end it is all what I like! However, there are countless ways to sell & present vintage, not to mention what is chosen to sell. These are all a minor reflection of the seller's style!

MY work percentages break down as follows;

1. 50% Pilfering ~ Endless hours of thrifting, estate sales & cold calling to achieve the desired amount and type of inventory! Pilfering includes such on-the-job hazards as mold, mildew, and for those in larger cities...injury!Buying many items you don't want just to get the 3 items you do want is another reality
2. 20% Research ~ A MUST to be a good vintage seller. Being informed makes you more money and makes you a valid competitor in the market. Listing items in wrong era catagories is a mistake that does not get un-noticed. Researching your label can help avoid the costly mistake of not mentioning a label in the title, which can cost hundreds

20% Laundry ~ Laundry includes all of the countless repairs I make, the washing, soaking, cleaning, sewing and often replacing zippers to get these items ready to sell.

10% Listing & Photographs ~ The obvious one, where your artwork shines through...and yes, it is artwork! How clothing is presented is huge because it is how 50% of the sale is made, the description is the other 50%

So where do I find the clothes anyway??

Read my pilfering description...this is where I get them. I have other secret sources that would surprise anyone...but that is my secret!

Finding clothes all depends on your location! I lived in a big city when I started this and live in a way smaller city now. I nearly lost my limbs at estate sales in the bigger city, and yet I find too much in my current city, to the point where I have to pass up the stuff that is not so desirable yet saleable

How did I get started??

Honestly..I do not know. It started with ebay selling things I had, then branched out. I had a small collection of vintage things that I liked, and when I saw how they were doing on ebay, I decided to get more and get started. It has been 4+ years of trial and error to learn what I know now...

Why do I do it??

Because I like the challenge of it. My extreme anal-retentive, controlling Ariesness drives me to do everything I can to be better! I improve myself daily in this business and I learn so much! Giving new life to these vintage beauties is important!

I am a huge fan of history, and doing the research is 70% of my fun and the other 30% feeds my artistic side with photography....I just love it!

What do I do for a REAL job??

This question reminds me of a question I heard very often when I was a designer at Home Depot...I would be standing there in my orange apron and someone....without fail....would always come up to me and ask...

"Do you work here??"

I mean...how do you answer that without being a smartass?? You can't

Answer?? I work more now than I ever did at any of my high profile Kitchen Design jobs...so enough said!

Is It Easy...and how do I do it??

Hours and HOURS and HOURS of work!

I have built everything I have of this business myself and I am proud of it! I build my branding, my website and spend very little $$ marketing it! I market through myspace , which is 100% free and is worth the time for the amount of traffic it brings in. Link exchanges bring in a surprising amount of traffic as well

I don't pay for shopping carts and merchant accounts, I build my website and link each item through Yahoo and use a free shopping cart service. This process will be described in a future topic.

I use Ebay on a very limited basis due to the cost associated with selling on eBay. I have built my website to be successful through the use of eBay in the past and have a goal to free completely from eBay.

Websites are so easy anymore, there is just no excuse not to have one if you want one. I use Yahoo, which is less than $10 a month and they give you an incredible cut and paste website builder which is brainless to use!

Feel free to comment or question about other methods! This is what works best for me...and this is just a small guide to give you a realistic take on how I do business! Enjoy!

A complete guide to aid in your vintage clothing on-line sales business! Check back for topics on auction listings, website, marketing and more

Topics will include seller and buyer experiences, suggestions and guidelines