The Local Vault – Betsy, Patricia, Julie and Joannie
These four women’s venture was born out of necessity. When Julie couldn’t sell various pieces of furniture and accessories her frustration prompted her to bring it up when she ran into her friend Patricia at the grocery store. The two women batted around some thoughts and asked each other, “Surely we can come up with a way to sell this furniture.” The two decided they would meet with two other friends who could help them flesh out their seed of an idea for Julie and maybe others too.
When Betsy Perry, Patricia Espinosa, Julie Rubich and Joannie Buhrendorf all got together, they looked at the One Kings Lane business model and thought they could combine a tag sale with a consignment shop, but do it all online. “This was the plan.” But the women realized they would need some serious technology to make it happen. A referral led them to a local development team that could create what they envisioned.
Forming an LLC with all 4 partners, the women met with the developers to build out a site that would offer furniture, lamps and accessories on consignment, but all online. Their edge; they would have specific vignettes made up of the items each client wanted to sell and then break them out individually with descriptions and prices. Like a consignment shop, the women would take 40% and give the seller 60%. It would be a sophisticated way to repurpose things. “People are looking for older quality pieces and want to reign in consumption by reusing things rather than buying new.”
They thought how easy it would be to have the items stay at the client’s home and simply take photos of the pieces each client wanted to sell. Joannie had high end photography equipment and the women invested in lighting so the photos on their website would be high quality. Now what to call their new venture?
Julie thought of the word vault because it reminded her of the old Loehmann’s days when the best designer clothes were in the way back of the store in a room called “The Vault.” Patricia says, “That’s where all the good stuff was. We added the word local since we would be offering local finds.”
With a name, photography equipment and a website the women set out to find clients with things to sell. “We found clients easily through word of mouth. We like to have at least 10 things that we can use to create a vignette. Each client has a storefront of sorts on the site.”
The Local Vault offers flash sales to let shoppers know the items have a set time to be on the site. Once the time limit is up, the items won’t be available. If things don’t sell, the client keeps them. If they sell, pick up is arranged.
It’s a family affair, Betsy says, “Our IT guy is twelve years old and jumping on the trampoline right now.” Joannie’s daughter helped them set up on Facebook and they got 100+ likes almost immediately. The women added other social media and provide a weekly newsletter showcasing current sales.
Each woman has various strengths and talents to bring to the venture and the women say, “It was scary to launch. We were insecure about putting ourselves out there, but we felt that we’d all jump in together. That made it easier.” The husbands say they can’t believe their wives created something out of nothing. The Local Vault has caught the eye of a local venture funding group – who knows the “local” may be expanding to other locales.
