We recently connected with Paul Forster and have shared our conversation below.

Paul , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My grandfather threw me in a dumpster when I was Five years old.

That’s when the addiction took. Al Hunter was a junker , picker , thrifter , flipper. Whatever the term you prefer , he was that.

We would dumpster dive, estate sale, hit the thrift trail and so forth.

The dopamine hit of finding “treasure” was unparalleled. I became an addict.

At the age of 13 when eBay launched, it just poured gasoline on that addiction. It opened a world to buy and sell treasures all across the country.

As I got older I got heavily into playing music which propelled me into being obsessed with vintage clothing.

After the economy tanked in 2008 I dug into flipping even more. I went back to school in 2010.
I did vintage clothing as a means to an end while getting 3 degrees back to back.

After the ending chapter of a long term relationship and 5 years of school I was burned out.

I wanted easy. I dove into vintage fashion heavy. I knew it. It made sense to me more than most things at that time and it had happened to be the biggest it had ever been in pop culture.

The pandemic hit and I had nothing to do but study and buy inventory.

Then I was offered a space that I envisioned so many years previously.

I knew that the only failure would be to not see what I could make.

I made that mistake once before with music and I knew I was not going to make that mistake again.

Maybe it would be my swan song to the industry, maybe it will thrive ….either way I had to know if my vision would extend to the love of our community in Spokane.

Paul , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Answered some of this in the last question.

Teleports goal is provide an array of decades and styles that can appeal to a 16 year old getting into vintage fashion to someone in their 60s who may want to find that heritage piece that tickles some nostalgia. We hit on that with items from the turn of the century all the way to early 2000s.

But we don’t just do vintage clothing. We do mid century furniture , decor, art, jewelry, records, skin care and all sorts of other vintage pop culture goods.

We are not a vendor mall. They are so overplayed and they don’t provide a great shopping experience for patrons.
People want to go shop a category and move on . Not have to go shop the same category 4 times over in different booths. It becomes exhausting.

We understand that most vintage stores who do have booths have that built into their business plans. Make rent on suppliers regardless of sales.
You definitely make more money as a business owner by charging vendors rent, but you don’t have total brand control , flow of the shop nor a concise shopping experience.

You can also enjoy an adult beverage while you hang out and shop.

We are mostly proud of our community for supporting this new way of thinking about a vintage shop, highly appreciative of the suppliers who provide us with goods and support the idea of what we’re trying to do here.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I cut my teeth on ecomm. As I shared earlier .

For Teleport our goal is to have cool shit in the store. A lot of dealers put their cool shit online. Yes you can move it faster , yes it creates a financial security but that’s not our goal. Teleport has been risk since day one. It’s been an experiment that has worked so far.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I think becoming an anthropologist really helped me understand a lot about human beings and the world we all experience simultaneously.

The anthropological lens can apply to anything that involves human beings.
Pair that with a designer degree and UX , you tend to see a lot more in a society than others. It’s not always a positive thing either. It can be quite lonely at times. But from a business perspective, I would argue it could be better than a business degree if you can synthesize and apply it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teleportvintageandco?igsh=bXBnNGVnbGRvOXk2&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teleportvintageandco?mibextid=LQQJ4d