We were lucky to catch up with Julie Childers recently and have shared our conversation below.
Julie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you manage your own social media?
I manage my own social media, which primarily includes Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Instagram is what I keep tabs on the most and what has actually helped sustain my business as it grows. When I started my vintage rug business, my shop was only an online ecommerce business and I was primarily only using IG to reach potential customers. It definitely provided the most impact and revenue. My social media presence therefore started off pretty organically with me managing it and just posting on my own, as I continue to do now. Over the years, IG has obviously changed a lot and frankly, I’ve just tried to keep up with it. It’s ever evolving nature has meant that I have had to learn how to put myself out there more and be a face for my brand. Also, I have had to learn that change on social media is constant and there will never be a simple recipe that will not only work for today, but also for tomorrow. However, Instagram and all the other socials are a never-ending source of inspiration and there’s so many other creators and business owners out there that you can follow and learn from. Yes, it can all be very frustrating to be popular one day and get very few views and likes the next, but I also try to remind myself that my posts are showing up for the people that matter. You don’t have to be viral on Instagram to make sales. Truly!
Lately, I’ve also been diving into advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Marketing and advertising is more complex than it seems and there’s a lot that goes into it. I’ve therefore also paid other advertising professionals to help me learn how to do it with the most impact, which can be quite costly. Advertising does work, but my advice is to do as much research on your own about it before paying others to help you figure it out, especially if you have a very small business like mine with serious budget constraints. There are some great free resources that you can access, like videos on Youtube and even creators on IG, that can show you how to do things before you spend a lot of money on lessons that might not necessarily provide the return that you think they should. Ultimately, you know your business better than anybody, so it’s worth taking the time to figure out things on your own, if you can, before you pay others to do it for you.
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 love vintage rugs! In my former life, I was a civil engineer for about 20 years. During the pandemic, I started working from home, as did a lot of people, and therefore added a couple of more hours of free time to my day since I was no longer commuting to my job every morning and evening. My lifelong obsession with interior design inspired me to use my extra time to start a side hustle hobby business selling these rugs I love so much. To me, I just thought it would be a great way to get some beautiful rugs into my own home for a little while before sharing them and sending them off to their forever homes. And thus Velvet & Shag was born, or rather, reborn. You see, Velvet & Shag actually started back in 2010 as an Etsy shop in which I sold small vintage home decor. I had given up on that for a few years, though, and shifting into vintage rugs just happened to be a really nice way to reintroduce Velvet & Shag to the world.
My little shop started out exclusively selling online nationally for the first couple of years, but business started to grow and I eventually decided to quit my career job and go full in on my passion that was this tiny business. In the beginning, I specialized in selling vintage Turkish, Persian and Moroccan rugs online all over the US. I also experimented with the world of popup markets to get in front of local buyers in my area. In March of 2023, I opened up my first brick and mortar in Olympia, WA where I’ve lived most of my life. This furthermore allowed me to transition my inventory a bit to include more home decor and gifts. This past March I moved into another location in the heart of downtown Olympia, which happens to also be the heart of our community. I have a bit more space to spread all of my beautiful vintage rugs out in and can additionally now offer even more home decor and gifts to locals and even tourists that come through to shop.
One of the reasons I love vintage rugs so much is because of their heirloom quality. I actually think that they’re very romantic. I love seeing people really connect with that special handmade, one of a kind piece that they will take home and keep for the rest of their lives and then pass down to their children so that they can live another life altogether. In a world of so much temporary, plastic, throwaway decor, it’s nice to spend a little more on something that will last generations and not end up in the landfill. Also, vintage rugs are pure works of art! If you appreciate art like me, then you will appreciate this extremely functional form of it.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
As previously mentioned, I started my business as a side hustle hobby business. I therefore used my own personal funds exclusively to purchase inventory for the first couple of years. As time went along, though, and the business started to pick up steam, my husband and I agreed that it would be a good idea to invest more money into it. I met with my local bank about securing a business loan and after finding out what that entailed and how much it would cost me every month, we decided to explore something different. My husband and I are lucky in that we’ve owned the same home for a long time now and therefore had a nice bit of equity built up in it. We were thus able to secure a Home Equity Line of Credit in order to secure additional funding. This method has worked great for us because our interest rate is lower than a traditional business loan and we also have 30 years to pay it back versus four or five. It therefore allows for a much, much lower monthly payment, which has made it way less stressful on me. A HELOC is not for everyone, but it has definitely been a great option for us.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
I’ve used Shopify for not only my ecommerce website sales, but also my POS system in my brick and mortar. It’s really nice how it neatly ties both systems together. It’s also very easy to use when I set up at pop up markets and don’t have access to my countertop checkout system. Just like any other technology, though, it definitely has its pros and cons. For the most part, it has been very good for my business and I find it to be pretty user-friendly and easy to use to build my website and navigate analytics. There are about a million different apps that I can easily add to manage inventory, sales and customer relations, too, which is really nice. One of the things I love most about it is that shipping is integrated within the platform and I get bulk rates for mailing all my packages. It totally streamlines the whole process for me. That being said, I have had at least one problem with a package getting lost and insurance that I purchased through Shopify not covering it. I know other business owners who have also had problems with their inventory disappearing from the system and getting good customer support. However, I know people who have had problems with other platforms, as well, though. In this day and age, you pick one and do the best you can. All in all, Shopify has worked out great for me so far and I have had a good experience using it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://velvetandshag.com/
- Instagram: @velvetandshagshop
- Facebook: velvetandshaghome
Image Credits
Julie Childers