We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anita Akinyemi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Anita, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I’ve always loved fashion and design. I toggled with the idea of becoming a fashion designer for years. I attempted to start a clothing line but found it was expensive and not as environmentally friendly as I would like. My sister in law was doing well selling vintage clothing on Etsy and told me I should try it. I did it first as a hobby, going to thrift stores to pick up vintage items and sell them on Facebook Live. I loved the thrill of finding amazing things at thrift stores and sharing them with other likeminded people. Eventually, my “hobby” was becoming very successful and I grew into a community of people that loved the service I provided for them. It wasn’t always steady stream of income but I tailored my business to become a well oiled machine. I took what was driving me logistically crazy and found solutions for it. I looked at my business as if I were the client and what my desires were and then I made that happen for my business. It’s been three years now and by the grace of God my business is still running. I’m blessed to be able to bring people great fashion in a sustainable way.

Anita, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My love for fashion is what brought me into the vintage industry. I am able to hunt for those unique pieces that people want but don’t have the time to spend searching hours for. I have ‘Happy Hour’ Lives on my Instagram every Tuesday to showcase the sustainable finds I’ve curated for my supporters that week. These finds are from the 1960’s to early 2000’s and typically range in sizes XS-3X. I have clothing and accessories. It’s a fun interactive way to share our love for fashion and discuss other life experiences during our time together. It’s almost like a fashion therapy experience for me. The interactions with my fellow vintage lovers leaves me so full and excited for the next time we meet! I’d like to believe they leave with awesome fashion and that same sense of fullness.

Additionally, outside of my Lives, I provide the option for ISOs & personal shopping. This allows people to tell me what they’re looking for and I can keep a specific eye out for that particular item.

The main thing I want my supporters to know about my business is I do this business with love and I want to spread my love for vintage fashion through a positively impactful way.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I started building my audience by following people that did similar work as myself. I got to know them through the app by asking questions, providing motivation, sharing their posts. These interactions lead me to meeting up with people at in person events where we sold our finds. I’ve meet many good people this way and that networking helped grow my audience on social media. I also believe that interacting with the people that support you is very valuable. I genuinely love seeing my customers in their vintage clothing (even if it’s not something they got for me). I just have a deep love for seeing how people translate their creativity through fashion.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I mostly do my business through Shopify. I got knowledge of Shopify through my former mentors I acquired through score.org. I unfortunately lost contact with them during Covid but during the times we were able to meet they provided a lot of good advice. I invoice through my website because I want traffic to come to my site and I want to avoid extra fees that some platforms take. However, when I started I didn’t have many customers so I did use eBay as my main source of income because it was easy to find comparables and know how much I could sell something for. However, once I gained access to more supporters on social media I was able to draw them to my website by invoicing there. I love that Shopify ha a lot of analytics and that it’s my main source to pull data from to pay taxes. It’s very organized and easy to use!

Contact Info:

• Website: Vintitrunk.com
• Instagram: @vintitrunk
• Facebook: Vinti Trunk
• Other: TikTok: @Vintitrunk