In essence, I am sure that it felt like time lasted forever, but in reality - it's already Christmas week!!
My name is Alicen and I am the owner/creator of Squirrel Girl Boutique and Resale (SGB for short). I never really planned that 2020 would include starting my own online shop, but here we are. I started this year out selling things on Poshmark and Mercari, dabbling a bit in eBay, and helping out sometimes at my mother's antique store. (Antiques & More Mall, Aiken SC) People would ask me if I had my own website and I would sadly say, "No, not yet." But I would think...probably never going to happen.
The year before I had a friend ask my help in organizing a yard sale. When I went to his house to help him get organized, he took me through four bedrooms, two closets, the kitchen, the living room, garage, two attic spaces, his crawl space under the house, and a partridge in a pear tree. I told him, "This stuff is amazing. It should go online, and definitely not thrown out on the driveway." And so, we loaded up as much as we could (multiple times) and brought it over to my garage. I worked that Fall and Winter to get things posted through my selling app profiles, fully intending to do a big yard sale in the Spring, and that's when Covid hit.
During that time period I met another super nice lady who asked me about my reselling. I explained to her how I was helping my friend; I would do the work of selling online and we would split the profit 50/50. She asked me if I could do the same for a few of her mother's things, and I said, "Yes, of course!" After three more trips home with a loaded car and a full estate of vintage craft items, I realized this was starting to become a real consignment gig, rather than helping a couple of friends sell a few things. I also knew that I was going to have to contend with the reality of all these items now living in the living space of my family members, so I had better kick it into gear. I felt at the time that I was convincing my family that I could do this by working to sell things quickly, but when I look back I realize, it was me convincing myself that I could actually do this.
From the Spring to the Summer, I had quite a few people, be it friends, coworkers, and even random customers at the antique shop, ask me if I had my own website and if they could give me a few items to sell for them as well. To each I would say "No website, but to your items: yes, of course!" again and again. I contemplated all the different selling platforms; the amount of time it took to work them; how much time I had in reality; and how well I was scratching the surface of the online shopping world with my current listings. And so, sometime between July and August, I decided to launch my own online shop. I took the leap, with absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I did it. I mean, I could at least try to follow along with You Tube tutorials, right?
I'm not sure where all of this is going to take me going forward, but I do know that it's never going to take me back to being the girl who was just going to help organize a yard sale. When I think about "out with the old" for 2020 and "in with the new" for 2021, it isn't about Covid or politics or societal dilemmas of hate; I think about my own level of personal mentality. Never again will I let myself think, "I'm not sure that I can do this, but I'm going to try." That was 2020. Starting on January 1st, I am going to take every single step telling myself, "I'm not trying to do it; I'm doing it." That's 2021.
So, I invite you to join me on my journey. Come watch as I find new things to sell and laugh with me when I make mistakes as an eComm business owner. I can only hope that my page can become a moment of mindfulness and peace for you in your own journey, and perhaps a place that can always make you smile and provide a moment of relief in your heart. Because for me it's not really about the selling, it's about self-recovery, and that is totally worth celebrating as we ring in the New Year.
