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Vintage seller Elisha Massimilla co-founded Heirloom and Trinket with her sister, Maria, as her business partner. Heirloom and Trinket is an online shop that resells vintage and antique finds. Elisha is a stay-at-home mom of three boys ages 3, 6, and 9. “I have always had a love for home décor, design, and all things old!” shares Elisha. “I frequently went antiquing with my mom and sister as a weekend pastime.”
During the COVID pandemic, Maria introduced Elisha to the world of Instagram live sales. Vintage home decor resellers were using the social media platform to sell remotely. “They were doing sales in an auction style. There would be a starting bid on items and people would bid in $1 increments for them. This would sometimes drive up the price by hundreds of dollars,” shares Elisha. Elisha found herself caught up in the excitement of bidding on these items. “When there was something you saw, loved, and wanted, it was a bit of a rush trying to outbid everyone else!”
Elisha and Maria were at a party where they began to tell others about these online auctions. Someone pointed out that the two of them could probably host their own auctions, and this got them thinking. “By that night, we had a hypothetical shop name, Heirloom and Trinket,” shares Elisha. “A few days after that, I was playing around with drawings of logos. It just kind of snowballed and became a real thing.” They purchased some starting inventory and had a business up and running within three weeks of inception.
Today, Elisha and Maria are successfully running their online vintage shop. I had the opportunity to chat with Elisha about her life as a vintage shop owner. Join us for this interview with vintage seller, Elisha. We will discuss the excitement, the challenges, and the behind-the-scenes aspects of this unique vocation!
Days vary for me on a lot in this job! I have days dedicated to shipping. On these days, I’m very carefully wrapping and packing boxes and doing runs to different shipping stores. Then I have sourcing days that are dedicated to browsing different thrift and antique stores or estate sales and yard sales, searching for special pieces.
On days [when] I do live online sales, I spend most of the day prepping. [This involves] picking out items I want to use for the sale, researching the item to know its history and worth, cleaning the items, and making promotions for the pieces that will be offered. [After all that is done, I have to do] the online sales, which lasts anywhere from 2-3 hours. But there have been times we stayed up until 2 or 3am to finish up a sale!
There are also some days I spend making and editing marketing materials and working on special promotions that we’re running or have planned for the future.
One of the biggest challenges daily for me is what a lot of other moms would probably say: just finding the time. When you say you’re a reseller, people think it’s just a lot of shopping. Which it is, but the shopping is time consuming and can be frustrating. Also, the packing and shipping part of the job can take hours out of my day. I juggle the shipping with cooking, cleaning, and playing with my kids.
The biggest challenge my sister and I have had was when Maria lost her home in a tornado that crushed her house only two weeks after we started selling. Shortly after Maria’s house was destroyed, she also had some medical issues that put a temporary pause on all activity that she could contribute to the business.
When we decided to start our shop, I knew I didn’t have the time and the capacity to open on my own. But if we could do it together and support each other, I knew we could make it work. We had each other to rely on to pick up pieces and fill in when the other couldn’t. We had different strengths to bring to the business that we needed to be successful. But [Maria had no] permanent residence and an unknown future. The pressure fell on me to try and get our shop up and running and to make sure it thrived.
[At the time,] we had also committed to selling on a second platform called Vintage Keepers Shop, which is an online antique store created by a popular Instagram influencer, Deb Foglia of Seeking Lavendar Lane. I went into this [as the] sole person responsible for all aspects of the shop, [including] the sourcing, the marketing, the selling, the networking, and the shipping. It was incredibly challenging for me because it was a really crucial time where we were just starting out. Things picked up pretty quickly for us and I didn’t want to lose that momentum, so I had to really strategize my days and figure out how to prioritize the shop and my commitments at home.
During that time, I relied heavily on my husband, who had his own job, to pick up some extra household duties. [He also committed] several weekends to having the kids completely by himself so I could source, ship, or do some extra sales. He also always does my shipping runs for me now and drops all my packages to the stores for me. When I’m packing boxes, he helps me with simpler tasks, [such as] running to the basement where I keep my box inventory to bring me supplies, weighing and measuring the packages, printing out shipping labels, and taping up boxes. Anything I ask, he helps with, which is helpful to making the process quicker and smoother.
My favorite aspect of the job is working with my sister doing something we both really enjoy. We have always been close, but somehow this has brought us even closer.
The advice I would give to someone else who has an interest in doing this is to not overbuy. [This goes for anyone], whether you’re reselling home decor or clothing or anything else. The number one mistake I made when starting was overbuying, before I knew my market, and winding up with a surplus of inventory that I couldn’t store or sell. You only need a few really great items to start off and get the business going. Quality is better than quantity.
I have a good knowledge of items and their history, which is important [to help] the buyer to be able to trust you and continue to buy from you. There are a lot of new reproductions out there that are being marketed as vintage and antique. The market is looking for authentic pieces, so you have to [know what] you’re selling. I’ve learned a lot since starting the business, but a lot of my knowledge was based on years of my own research.
There have been so many unknowns and ups and downs in this business since we started 20 months ago. There have been times where I felt like we were thriving, and there have been times I have felt like such a failure. [The difficult times have] made me question whether I should continue or fold. There are verses that I have written in the front of my sales books to remind me of a few things:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-7
“Do not be anxious about anything.” Philippians 4:6-7
“Cast all your cares on Him.” 1 Peter 5:7
I’m still trying to figure this one out! There are times that I feel like I’m giving everything to the shop, and there are other times when I feel like I’m giving everything to my personal life. I always feel like one is getting more of me than the other. The best way I try to keep that balance is to not commit to more than I can handle.
In the beginning, I was committing to two or three live sales per week, with other sales on our Vintage Keepers Shop platform in between. That directly impacts the amount of sourcing I have to do. Because I was selling so often, I was shipping about 30 or more packages per week. I realized it was just too much for me! While I [originally] thought that was how it needed to be in order for our shop to be successful, [I realized that] it was absolutely tiring me out and taking time away from my family and my personal life.
We hope you enjoyed this interview with vintage seller, Elisha Massimilla! We regularly feature interviews with successful women from all vocations and walks of life. View the Featured Women category to read about other women!
Lauren Magazine is an online lifestyle magazine for Christian women.
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