Edited Dec 2024
Two years ago, I started Citric Vintage, an online clothing store. After 6 months, I closed shop and ended the business with no success, but with many lessons learned. I mostly learned applied economics 101 concepts in a practical environment. I even ditched dreadful microeconomics lectures to develop the business. I returned to the theory later with real examples that were a thousand times better than my professor’s. Managing a small business online gave me an insight into business that was impossible to extract from a lecture hall, and only for that, Citric was a personal success.
Dealing With Customers
One of the first things I noticed, probably because it affected me too much, was people complaining about my prices, which I believe were more than reasonable. At first, this bothered me. I had some cool sweatshirts in mint condition, at a fraction of their in-store price, with the added tag that they were vintage, making them unique pieces and environmentally sustainable. Some people quickly got on board with the idea, bought a sweatshirt, and repped the store on social media, helping me get more customers. For those first customers, I’m grateful. Others, however, were less helpful; some tried to make fun of the business or lowball me on the clothes, trying them all on, making a mess, not buying anything, or even negotiating insane discounts.
I learned two things interacting with customers: first, some people will always find whatever you sell too expensive while still wanting to own it, for this reason, it is better to have a clear price range and just sell to the people who think is fair than waste time with the people who will bring less income to the business. This is a textbook example of Pareto’s 80/20 principle, which theorises that 80% of the profits come from 20% of the customers. By focusing on the customers that generate the income, the business is optimised for profit.
The other lesson I learned through example is the power of optionality, illustrated through the famous marmalade experiment by Columbia professor Dr. Sheena and made famous by her TED Talk and book. Giving customers too many options is counterproductive, primarily, as it will attract more curious eyeballs but fewer real customers. At first, I thought posting many of my clothes and renewing as regularly as I could afford new stock would bring me in more clients, but it is normally the other way round. Constricting the number of choices introduces less noise into the purchasing equation, allowing the client to make an easier decision and ultimately purchase. I call this the Netflix problem, where more time is spent choosing the movie than actually watching it.
Small caveat from my 2024 edit. This experiment has had some replicability issues. For further information, see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/48210291_Can_There_Ever_be_Too_Many_Options_A_Meta-analytic_Review_of_Choice_Overload
Initial Growth
I also conducted an experiment into the exponential growth of a client base, where word of mouth from clients brought in new interested clients. Leveraging social media as each client became a loudspeaker and brand ambassador to their network becomes a compounder of growth. I saw firsthand the early growth of an e-commerce business and what it takes to get big on social media. There is a huge component of in-your-face branding that we are bombarded with whenever we unlock our phones. This is mainly because the competition on social media is for eyeballs and their return in dollars.
Something else I learned is that it is never the right time to decide. I embraced the MVP framework used in Silicon Valley, went out to market with the minimum viable product, and started attracting clients from day one, then improved the product on the go. I had massive doubts when starting this. What would people say? Would I lose all my money? Would I get scammed? There was a great amount of uncertainty, most created by overthinking. I found out that most people don’t give a fuck, some will support you, and a small minority may laugh or ask uncomfortable questions for a while, but they quickly move on to bully someone else.
Finally, I also learned a valuable lesson in when to quit. After a while, the business took too much of my time, and the costs of getting to the next level in publicity and stock by investing in more clothes were too big to make a real commitment. I decided to quit where I was instead of trying to be more ambitious and failing. The prospects were not great either, to get from the place I was, selling a couple of sweatshirts a month, to having daily sales and weekly restocks as the competition was having required a great investment in publicity and stock that I was not ready to make. I had recently started being profitable and was not able to double down on the business.
Quitting was hard because I was having lots of fun with the shop, getting moderate sales, enough to break even, and starting to get known as the vintage clothing guy in my circle of friends. I felt like I was abandoning an idea that I had been developing for months. Ultimately, it was the best decision. To anyone considering starting something like this, I encourage you to take the plunge and try it out, do your research, and start as small as possible to reduce the initial amount of work and investment.
Final Thoughts
I learned an important lesson about testing stuff and carrying ideas through. By attempting to give form to an idea, I got to see it through and ultimately find out it didn’t work out for me. It gave me the confidence to build more stuff and to carry out my ideas, no matter how crazy or difficult they seemed. It is better to try out something and see that it is not viable than to assume it is and always have that itch. I also had a lot of fun along the process, doing marketing campaigns, having 10 sacks full of vintage clothes crowding my apartment, and developing a business from scratch. I recommend that if you have had an idea for a while, go with it. If it ultimately doesn’t work, you will have a good story and will have learned tools to move on to other things. I sometimes looked at the state of my bedroom, where 90% of the space was covered in clothes, and laughed at how crazy the situation was. This is one of the greatest feelings there is.
