fancy4glass.ca Vintage Collectibles

fancy4glass.ca | Winnipeg Canada Antique Vintage On-line Shop

2011-10-30T02:25:00.000-05:00

fancy4glass.ca | Winnipeg Canada Antique Vintage On-line Shop

On the Hunt - Online Selling Tips and Advice for Vintage Clothing and Fashion

2011-04-23T13:08:00.000-05:00

Marni Knits Stunning Green Knitted Wool Dress

So, the last blog post we went over the pros and cons for selling costume and vintage jewelry, for this post I want to focus on the benefits and downsides of selling designer and vintage clothing on-line.

Wow, again there is much ground that we can cover within this category alone but I must stick to the basic and more general parts for now.

Vintage clothing is gaining more and more popularity throughout the internet amongst collectors. If you are asking why that is, we will gladly give you a few reasons why...

Firstly, vintage clothing was not mass produced as it is in this day and age, which means that the fashion of the past was creatively put together with great attention to detail and in most cases made for a higher quality of fabric, stitch, and overall feel to it.

For example, if you've ever had a piece of clothing that was custom made for you, you will know exactly what 'quality feeling' I am referring to. Compare this piece now to similar clothing article that you can pick up at the local department store, where there are at least 20 or more hanging right next to it. This, I would say is the main reason why people turn into collectors when it comes to vintage clothing.

Another reason would have to be the need and the desire for one to uniquely separate themselves from the masses. Most people who collect vintage clothing want to have their own individual look, a look that is not easily reproduced by the people around them. Everyone knows at least a few people in their own lives that stand out and have this look about them that no one else is able to match. These people are making an effort to ensure that the 'outside' is just as unique as the individual on in the 'inside'. We are all individually one of a kind, so then why should we all dress the same?

Although, in my opinion, I also find that there are some fashions from the past that may be quite bold and in some instances leaning on the tacky side, that if one were to wear in public they may be ridiculed, or thought of as a wacky crazy person. But, again this is what makes it fun, and trust me collecting vintage fashions is one of the best out there.


Christian Dior Red Wool Suit

Coco Chanel Suit 1965

Lastly, some people may collect vintage clothing to capture a label or brand by a specific designer from a specific era. For example the designers of the 1950's such as Christian Dior and Coco Chanel are one of the biggest names in the fashion world that clothing collectors will pay top dollar for. [For a list of top quality vintage clothing designers visit our site here: [List of highly collectible famous designers names for vintage clothing]

The benefits to selling vintage clothing are that there is never a shortage of clothing at thrift shops, garage sales, and used clothing stores. There is a whole lot of 'boring' to sort through, but we figure that the more options to choose from the better. You should never have a hard time finding stock to fill your inventory.

So definitely all of the clothing sections that you should scour would have to include for both women and men; dresses (my favorite), skirts, blouses, pants, sweaters, suits, shorts, jumpers, coats. Now don't forget to look through the belts, scarves, neckties, hats, sunglasses, and swimwear. Lots of these famous designers made accessories to go with their clothing, and it has been my experiences that it is much more likely for one to come across a scarf, necktie or hat by Christian Dior than it is to come across a dress.

There are a few downsides to selling vintage clothing. It is not so easily stored; you want to make sure that the articles remain unwrinkled so it's best to hang on a hanger. Most clothing gets musty when sitting for too long; you want to make sure that the room is not damp and musty. It is very important to notice any stains, rips, holes or damages to the clothing prior to buying it, and sometimes it is very difficult to catch these flaws.

Staining is generally worse than finding a tear, a tear can easily be sewn, but as is the case with most old stains they will not come out in the wash. Generally we find that quality designer brand name clothing is donated to used shops or out for sale at a yard sale due to staining. No worries, so long as you are prepared to leave a gorgeous Pierre Balmain dress behind because of the yellowing of the armpit area, trust me sometimes this must be done!

One very neat idea, which we have come across several times on the web, are people who are inspired by vintage clothing and they are highly creative, they either purchase vintage clothing and reconstruct it, or make their own clothing 'in the style of'. So regardless of the imperfections, one can take parts of a fabric, the buttons, or any part of the piece of clothing and recreate a whole new piece. Then one can truly say that it is a one of a kind piece. That is by far my favorite type of vintage clothing, and possibly something that fancy4glass may look at perusing at one point in time.

So, until next time, don't assume that vintage clothing is for the poor, wacky and tacky. For many true collectors of vintage clothing it is what makes us stand out in a crowd and trust me when I say that it will have all of the people around you asking "How the heck do you always look so amazing? I don't know how you always pull it off!"

On the Hunt - Online Selling Tips and Advice for Costume Jewelry

2011-03-13T14:01:00.000-05:00

We have been working extremely hard to bring in some unique products to our site: www.fancy4glass.ca. It seems almost impossible for me to balance being the purchaser, the photographer, the webmaster, the researcher, the customer service rep, and the marketer for the site. I feel as though while focusing on one of these areas that the other areas may suffer slightly. One thing that I do know for sure is that the more things that I buy, the more behind I feel. I suppose if one has the space and the right amount of time to invest then they can manage listing their inventory as it comes in.

Being in customer service for all of my working life, I would say that we generally place this above all else. One thing that I would say that is key to running a successful business, whether online or face to face is to never compromise exceptional customer service. I would say that an online seller should make a greater effort and go out of their way to make sure that they establish an exceptional customer service reputation.

People are generally weary of dealing with someone somewhere that they have never met and making a commitment to purchase an item that they have never seen in person or have had the chance to examine will solely rely on the sellers reputation. Which is why a feedback rating or a testimonial page is very important and also one of the reasons why we recommend when starting off selling online to start with an existing established site such as ebay, ecrater, artfire, or etsy.

So, let me start off by giving my expertise in finding the right products, and then eventually I will get into the form of selling or listing these items online. Because let's face it, you may have something to sell, but if there is no demand in the market place for it than there will be no chance to exercise that exceptional customer service of yours...

What do you have an eye for? Also, what do you feel the most passion for? These two questions are very important and as you will continue to learn your answer will constantly evolve. For us, we started with small collectible items. These were easy for us to locate as most of the time it would say right on them 'collector's' or 'limited edition', such as cookie tins, dolls, lithographs...etc.

But we soon realized that even though these items sold online we didn't have a huge passion for the typical collectible toy, and wanted to branch out and learn what was so desirable about certain vases or dishes that some people would pay hundreds of dollars for and in some circumstances drop thousands of dollars on!

In time we developed the 'eye' to not only spot the desirable quality of an item, but along with that came a feeling of excitement. Imagine spotting a vase that sold the previous week on ebay for $100 with a tag of $1.50.

There are all sorts of vintage collectibles and antiques that are on demand right now. Having the 'eye' to spot these items and snatching them once you have the chance to is key. However, you will have no drive or desire to go all around town and search for these items if you are not passionately enjoying the hunt.

We also recommend choosing only one area of expertise, at least to start with. Not only will it make the learning curve easier, but it is much easier to establish a reputation and separate yourself from the competition for being the 'necktie guy' or the 'vintage wedding dress shop' rather than the 'antiques & collectibles store' or 'anything vintage'.

We know that we did not follow our own advice, as this is something that we have learned and realized overtime and now something that would be a challenge to switch over suddenly. But, take our advice on this, as it has been a challenge competing with all the wonderful vintage- antique shops on-line and we wish we had focused more in one area.

Something that we have considered was running a site for each of the desired areas instead of all the categories on one site (If we had been asked to choose one area of passion, it would have been impossible...). Also, for the purposes of web marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) sticking to one category would make things a lot easier and put you right up there.

So, in saying that here are some areas of selling and our own opinions regarding the pros and cons for each:

Costume Jewelry: This is one area that comes with it's great rewards. There are a lot more pros than cons for a seller. Jewelry is small and doesn't take up a lot of space. Shipping is easy and doesn't require a whole lot of material, and generally it arrives undamaged in transit. One concern is that the parcels maybe smaller and easily lost in the mail [although to date, we haven't had any jewelry lost in transit]. Most costume jewelry is generally marked by the designer (Marcel Boucher, Miriam Haskell, Napier, to name a few...) which makes it easier for identifying purposes. However, we find that this category requires a lot of patience. Jewelry may have had repairs or stones replaced that are not original to the era. One must have a great understanding of what to look for in that aspect. Also, there are some highly sought after pieces that are unmarked and one must invest a significant time 'man-handling' and researching to be able to identify these pieces when out on the hunt. Collectible pieces such as Bakelite, and precious jewelry with real stones or gems. We find that designer signed pieces are generally marked up at the thrift stores and in order to get a steal of a deal in this category it will pay dividends to recognize the unmarked desired pieces as true collectibles and invest time researching these, so when you come across these you will buy them. At most thrift stores we find that Scandinavian and modernist jewelry from the 50's can be obtained inexpensively and that these pieces have a high demand in the market place. Bakelite and collectible plastic jewelry generally sells for a buck or two at the thrift shop and demands a hefty tag in the jewelry market place. Another point to consider, which is just our thoughts and possibly we are right off the mark, is that jewelry is generally worn by women, although I am sure that there are some males that collect these pieces as well, jewelry is mainly cutting the market place in half and limiting the sales to mostly the female population. Where as home decor (ceramics, glassware, pottery) maybe collected by both genders equally.

We can go on about costume jewelry as there is still so much to go over, but we realize that we have a lot of ground to cover, and want to at least touch the surface with all the other collectible areas...

Next post we will go over the benefits and challenges with selling other collectibles. As, I now realize that there is a lot to consider. So, until next post, thanks for reading. We'd love to hear some of your thoughts in regards to selling, buying or collecting costume jewelry.

Heart 2 Heart

2011-01-29T18:15:00.000-06:00

Well, here we meet again my friends...but, before I get into the details of how my 'collecting all things vintage' journey began, I'd love to let you all know about our very first annual 'Heart 2 Heart' sale:

Every year going forward, two weeks before Valentines Day (pretty much starting now) we will be offering a 15% OFF discount to anyone who emails the code 'Heart2HeartDISCFEB14' in the email subject line. The 15% OFF discount is applicable on all products available at www.fancy4glass.ca until Feb 14/2011.

We have quite a few gems that will make her light up. Go ahead and make her feel unique and give her something that no other girl will have...

We also offer gift wrapping as one of our services...so no worries, we can have her gift looking like a million bucks.

Most items pictured on the Slide-show on the bottom of our 'Detailed Images' pages of each item, may also available for purchase (we just haven't had a chance to add these products to our on-line inventory yet). Please inquire and include as much details as possible. Now, aren't you glad you decided to check out our blog?

And finally now for how it all began....Well, it all started with my first born son - Aidan. When I was 8 months pregnant back in 2003 with Aidan I started maternity leave from my then full-time job. As many mothers may already know, it isn't that much fun staying at home (as big as can be), with everything 'baby' already in place except the one most important thing ...baby.

Waiting for Aidan to come into this world felt like forever. Not only was I bored and looking for something to do, but I really wanted to find a way to make money from home so that I wouldn't have to return to work and stay home to raise my son.

At that time in 2003 the big success on the internet was ebay. And if you ask many sellers on ebay about the prime days for selling on ebay they would pretty much all agree that it was around this time frame.

So, there you have it. Starting out as a seller on-line we would recommend selling on an already established site (now-a-days we wouldn't necessarily suggest ebay). However, established sites bring in the potential customers. They focus on the marketing. They are generally pretty good at making sure all transactions run as smooth as possible. And also as equally important when starting off as a seller on-line, it is important to search these sites in order to price your items according to market demands.

At the time I had 'ebay' searched every single piece of china, dinnerware, jewelry, toy and everything else I could get my hands on. What a surprise! I couldn't believe that the every day hand-me-down mugs and bowls that I became so familiar and accustomed to were worth more money than I would be willing to pay for them myself.

After examining what people were buying and playing around the site for a few days I thought I might as well sign myself up and see whether it was everything the hype claimed it to be.

I believe that one of the very first items we listed on-line was a collectible limited edition cracker tin. Yes it was slightly banged up, and yes we weren't too sure whether our auction would be taken seriously. However, we mentioned all the flaws, we took our then amateur picture. We described the item as best we could. We listed it for .99 cents. After all, it was an auction. We wanted to see how high it would get.

I believe the auction ended at $4.89, with a few bidders. But let me tell you, for something that I had just taking up space in the house, I was happy to see it go. Now, after paying the small listing fee and having done the mistake of guessing and then listing exact shipping, I ended up making about $3.00.

So for our next Blog post, we are going to share our tips, risks and benefits of selling on ebay. Also, we will fill you in on why we don't recommend ebay as the main selling location and which on-line market places we think are hot for 2011.

It's been a pleasure sharing with you today, a little bit of nostalgia for me. Also, I'd like to share that January 27th my husband and I had our 11th year wedding anniversary. A special thanks to him for being supportive throughout my journey into the selling world of the internet. Without a supportive network it is difficult to get to where you want to be. However, every obstacle or roadblock once conquered makes the sweet victory oh-so much sweeter.

So then until next time, let’s hear no more reasons why you can not get to where you want to be. Let's find a way to get you there.

Past to Present

2010-12-18T21:00:00.000-06:00

Fun stuff. Today consisted of what you see in the picture. A cup of Timmy's coffee in the AM had me going all day long. It was a day of catching up for photo editing and updating the site. It always seems like a waste of a day when no new items get listed, however, I can say that all the odds and ends that were piling up finally got dealt with...and of course a new blog post entry was the final item to cross off the list.

We made another local delivery yesterday [19 pieces of Kathie Winkle dishware]. This delivery inspired a new marketing idea. In our 'News & Auctions' section you can find all of our active coupons. In order to generate more local sales we've decided to offer free delivery to all orders over $60...and any Winnipeger knows that there is nothing better than hibernating in their comfy homes during the coldest months of the year.

Also, it's been a while since we have sent out a mass-emailer to our valued customers. I figured that with the holiday season and the lazy days off work fast approaching there would be a little down time for folks to browse the internet [our site!], We offered 5% off all purchases till Jan. 20th.

How often should a mass email be sent out to a mailing list? We have sent out three so far: Dec 2009, May 2010, Dec 2010.

As our contact list grows [90 contacts] we would expect to see some activity from the coupon offers included. This would be the first mass email that we received an instant request for a particular pattern [Anyone looking to sell their Arabia of Finland blue laurel bands & flowers dinner plates?].

I've started reading a good book 'Digital Marketing - Strategies for Online Success' by Godfrey Parkin [thanks to Ryan]. So far it seems to be quite informed. I am hoping that it will inspire some new creative ways that will make sense to invest in.

We think that the best way to keep these blog posts as a step by step process of growing a business, we should be filling you in from the beginning and get to how we ended up where we are today.

Also, it will be lots of fun and very informative to fill you in on the complete process: starting with the hunt of the items [our advice to finding the good stuff], to listing the item, to the shipment of the product, and following up with the new owner for feedback to have them return back to us for more.

So, before I get way ahead of myself, [which I will do right here...] I want to announce that on Saturday March 12th, 2011, we have accepted a request for a sales table at:

Crafty Minions: The Handmade and Vintage Sale at Aqua Books - Aqua Books/EAT! bistro - 274 Garry Street Winnipeg MB, Canada, R3C 1H3

More info to follow...

Next post entry we are thinking maybe starting at the beginning for you...

Somewhere Past Go

2010-12-15T20:34:00.000-06:00

Well, it is just you and I now, sit down with me for a few will ya? I promise not to disappoint...intentionally.

Greetings, I'm Lenda [...yeah that's right] I own an on-line shop called 'fancy4glass.ca' out of Winnipeg, MB, specializing in the unique, vintage & antique. Really, I ain't mad at 'cha if you haven't visited.

Although this blog should be [and really is] a great way to market my site-shop, This blog has been created with the full intent to capture the business decisions, risks, and lessons that I will experience as I make my way, and follow through on my passion and vision for fancy4glass that goes beyond a hobby as it transforms into a big part of my living.

Prior to 2003 had you asked me where my obsession with all things vintage stood, I would have to say that it would have been non-existent. Fast forward to today and never in a million years did I even think of owning an on-line shop. Sometimes I feel as though I don't know enough about internet business and everything that goes with it to be running a successful on-line store.

What I do know is that I absolutely adore [almost all things] vintage, and I do know vintage well. Mix that with my passion for shopping at thrift shops & scouring every nook and cranny [a.k.a mine, my friends & family attics, drawers and cupboards] and it guarantees a top notch and hand picked "Lenda approved" inventory.

I do realize that I still need to learn & understand all that there is to know about marketing a business and creating a fancy4glass awareness, and who knows eventually [I am gonna say it]...a brick & mortar shop??

So to wrap this segment up for now anyways we would like to leave you with the thought that the future of fashion is in recycling the past, vintage collectibles that you may come across will inspire a fabulous unique look to you & your home decor. So go ahead be an individual, but I don't mind if you tag along...