Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Avery Greey. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Avery, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

I manage my own social media. Social media plays a huge role in small businesses now, you almost can’t get by as a small business without using a platform. I’m the beginning I hated running my TikTok page. I didn’t want to talk on the internet for thousands of people to see but I know I had to. Over time it got easier and I actually started to enjoy sharing my life and business with people online. I noticed that my platforms would do better the more personal I was. That’s why I haven’t and don’t think I will hire someone to manage my socials because people want it to come from the owner and the person doing it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started in selling vintage clothes in 2020 selling on Depop and going to the flea markets in LA. The flea markets in LA were so fun and the community was amazing but I wasn’t able to make any money because of the cost of traveling. I started doing flea markets in Arizona slowly getting involved in the community there. I started doing my own pop-ups in downtown Phoenix bringing a crowd from TikTok bigger than I ever thought could happen. When those started getting bigger I knew my next step would be to open a store because that was always my goal. I signed my lease for my first brick and mortar October 2022 and quickly got things together to open to the public. We have been at this location for a year now and have already grown so much. I have one employee now and we are already looking for a bigger space! Starting the store was a huge step in my career and it was something I really just had to trust was going to work. Right now we specialize in womens vintage, mostly 80s- early 2000s but we are slowly trying to expand to have a mens and unisex section with more variety in different decades!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My social media presence started off very small and I was quite embarrassed of it. One thing I learned about social media is that you just have to keep posting. eventually you will find the right audience for what content you’re making. There’s definitely a downside to posting, people are going to be rude and hate what you’re doing no matter what it is and you just have to not think about it too much (harder said than done). For me, I had a slow but steady build of followers which I think is better than blowing up and getting a ton of followers at once because that can be so stressful.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I was in college and working a job at a retail store when I started my ”side hustle” of selling vintage. I hated what I was studying in school. The only thing that would bring me joy during that time was digging in goodwill for hours. I had no car at the time and would convince people in my classes to go to the thrift so I could catch a ride with them. I was selling on Depop and once I was making enough money from that I dropped out of school and started selling vintage and kept working my retail job. I eventually was able to quit my day job and take on selling vintage full time. That’s when I started doing flea markets every weekend. It took awhile before convincing my family I could do this full time but once I had my own pop-up where 200 shoppers showed up, they slowly changed their minds and trusted that I could start a brick and mortar because of the audience I was bringing in.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @ewiedotcom
• Other: TikTok @ewiedotcom

Image Credits
Sydney Moore