We recently connected with Rich & Meg Velten and have shared our conversation below.

Rich & Meg, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s talk about innovation. What’s the most innovative thing you’ve done in your career?

When we started doing markets full time, we needed an eye catching display and a way to transport our furniture and vintage goods. We bought a 1967 Westwind camper and renovated it, turning it into a mobile boutique. It was a pretty unique approach to staging market displays and it became a great way for people to remember us.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

We’re Meg and Rich, owners of Ruffles and Overalls. We’ve been married 17 years and have 7 beautiful children, ages newborn through 15. We sell vintage and handcrafted furniture and home decor at vintage markets across the Southeastern US and online. We are also the hosts of Vintage Roots Market here in West Palm Beach.

We’ve both always been the thrifty, crafty type and grew up learning to work with our hands and pinch a penny. When we started making our home together, we naturally gathered furniture and decor from yard sales, thrift stores, and even curbside. As our style changed or we decided to upgrade, we started to sell our extra things online and on craigslist. It became a hobby where we would find things for free or inexpensively, fix them up, and then resell them. When Rich sold his first business in 2017 and was looking for work, we decided to take our hobby to the next level. We started selling more online and renting space at local green markets and craft shows on the weekends to sell and network. As time went on, we began traveling to and selling our vintage and handcrafted home goods at larger vintage markets. Looking for more local opportunities, in 2019 we began cohosting seasonal barn sales. In 2021 we hosted our first Vintage Roots Market at Yesteryear Village in West Palm Beach to share our love of vintage and handcrafted goods with our community and help support local small businesses.

Our goal as business owners has always been to help our customers find unique pieces for their home that they love. Vintage pieces have so much character and a rich history. We love learning and sharing the stories behind the pieces that we sell. As vintage market hosts, we have taken this one step further and enjoy providing our customers with a place where they can conveniently shop vintage and handcrafted goods while enjoying local food and live music. This helps people learn about small businesses they might not have known of otherwise. We truly feel that working together with other small businesses and lifting each other up makes us all stronger and more successful.

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

We built our presence on social media by sharing photos of our latest projects and decor. When we met people at markets, we would ask them to follow us on social media. As time went on, I (Meg) got more involved in the vintage home decor niche on Instagram. I started following accounts like mine and commenting on their posts. Our account grew more as I started to be featured by other accounts in hashtag groups. We started joining virtual sales groups where we all promoted each other’s accounts and sold our goods together online. Magazine features and participating in other events that promoted our business also gave us more exposure and helped our account to grow.

My advice to those looking to grow their social media presence is to make your account visually appealing, be consistent in posting, and network with others. It’s worthwhile to learn the basics of photography so that your photos and videos look professional and cohesive. Posting consistently is also important. The more you come up in your followers’ feeds, the more they will remember you. Sharing behind the scenes details helps your customers to get to know you better. Networking with other businesses is a great way to boost your growth on social media. Sharing and commenting on other businesses’ posts is a great way to support them and usually they will return the favor. With a little bit of effort, social media can be a great form of free marketing for your small business.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

In addition to selling online, at markets, and hosting our own show, we have a couple of other revenue streams. We rent out our vintage camper and various pieces of vintage furniture for parties and photo shoots on weekends that we aren’t traveling to shows. We sell ordinary items we pick up at yard sales or thrift stores, but wouldn’t normally sell through our business, on Facebook Marketplace. We are also growing an income from social media monetization and collaborations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rufflesandoveralls.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rufflesandoveralls/
• Facebook: facebook.com/rufflesandoveralls
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNmG4VU8fbAEpydMkiXX6Gg

Image Credits
Crystal Clear Photography