Oh So Lovely owners Erin Thiessen, left, and Stefanie Hiebert, and their 1956 camper trailer.
It's fitting that Stefanie Hiebert and Erin Thiessen run a vintage store out of a restored 1956 camper trailer. The twentysomething Winnipeg natives trace their love of vintage back to their fondness for classic cars.
"I remember being five and my dad had a 1957 Chevy and I was so in love with this car," Hiebert says.
Thiessen thanks her grandfather, who owned collectable autos, for her first exposure to the world of vintage.
The business partners, who worked together in a Winnipeg clothing boutique until earlier this year, planned all along to open their own store. What to sell was never in question: They'd been collecting housewares, jewellery and clothing from the 1950s and '60s, storing their treasures first in Hiebert's basement, then her attic, then her garage.
Why a trailer? They were eager to be at the front end of an emerging trend. "Mobile shops are popping up all over the States, and we're slowly seeing them in Canada," says Thiessen. "It was less intimidating than renting a space to start out," adds Hiebert.
The pair (with lots of help) began tearing apart the Cardinal RV they'd bought online for $1,000 last winter, giving it a fresh coat of coral and white outside, replacing the wood panelling and flooring inside, and adding new shelves. While they waited for summer, the pair launched a blog to spread the word and opened a store on Etsy, a popular online e-tailer of crafts and vintage goods.
In June, Oh So Lovely Vintage made its first appearance at the fair in Niverville, Manitoba. "We were blown away by the reaction," says Hiebert. She and Thiessen plan to take the trailer beyond Manitoba's borders to other spots in Canada and the United States.
Two months later, Hiebert and Thiessen took up residence in Winnipeg's Vintage Glory store, sharing the space with its owner. A physical store was "always our long-term goal," Hiebert says.
The business partners don't plan to let their store outshine their trailer, though. Judging from the first summer, it made a strong impression. "We found that every age group is really interested," Thiessen says. "For kids, it's this little playhouse. For teenagers and people in their twenties and thirties, it's the shopping. For the older generation, it's nostalgia. They walk into our trailer and it's a step back in time for them."
THREE THINGS TO KNOW
- Just go for it: If you're waiting to feel like you've figured it all out before starting a business, you'll be waiting a long time. “Just do it,” Hiebert says. “We don't have a magic formula for what we're doing, but we're passionate and we work as hard as we can.”
- Set your priorities: Hiebert and Thiessen launched an Etsy store in April but took it down in June to concentrate on their trailer. “We realized once we got the trailer up and running, it was way more work than we thought,” Thiessen says. “The trailer is our baby and we wanted to focus on it.” The pair plans to reopen the online store.
- Be patient: “Our blog had a slow start, but now it's grown so much,” Thiessen says. Starting the blog last winter actually got them noticed by Bust, a U.S. women's lifestyle magazine. And since the blog's launch, hits have more than doubled.
BY THE NUMBERS
- $35: Price of the most popular product, summer dresses.
- 24: Number of $35 dresses they need to sell a month to break even.
- 35: Number of items they sell out of their trailer in a typical month.
- $3,000: Total cost of launching the trailer, including inventory.