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

Jocelyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Shopping pre-loved and used clothing has exploded in recent years, with many major retailers now offering buy back programs for their items. However, by hosting local in person events where community members can shop in person for used clothing and accessories we are able to minimize our carbon footprint by obtaining sellers and clothing locally and reselling it locally. Further, this allows shoppers to touch, feel, see the items in person before buying them-quality they can see.

Jocelyn, 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 name is Jocelyn and I’ve always enjoyed shopping but was finding that items made today often lacked the quality I was seeking and were steadily increasing in price. I began shopping second hand and fell in love with the thrill of the hunt. In addition to shopping second hand for myself, I then started reselling thrifted items online on various e-commerce platforms but felt limited in the impact I could provide one item at a time. I live in a tight knit neighborhood and my friends would often indicate they hand piles of clothes they no longer needed or wore but didn’t have the time to post the items online for sale. They felt they the items were too nice to donate. Thus, Between Neighbors was born! I had easy access to sellers with high quality clothing and accessories they no longer needed or wanted, and provided an avenue for them to sell their items to other community members. I made selling as easy as possible and allow sellers to set their own prices which differs than traditional consignment stores. I’m most proud that our first event was a success – starting with no business contacts outside of my friends I served 81 shoppers, found a new home for 204 items, and donated over $1500 in merchandise value to the local career closet.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I saved my own money to start my business. I did a variety of side hustles to accumulate the capital I needed for my first event-shipt shopper, on demand pharmacy consults, and initial reselling profits.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I really had no idea what I was doing with social media when I first started. I took a business planning class locally that got me started and then I just started experimenting seeing what posts got the most engagement. I started with friends and used facebook for some targeted advertisement. Video content with music certainly was the front runner.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.betweenneighborssale.com
• Instagram: @betweenneighborssale
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556648235290