Fish Market Studio

Fish Market Studio: You’ll pay me $60 for this t-shirt that I bought for $5.

Fish Market Studio: That’s when like things clicked where I was like, okay, that makes sense.

Fish Market Studio: And that’s when like the serious like money, cashflow started coming in, we were like, holy shit. We can actually maybe make this into something bigger.

Andrew: This is Graham and Arnold, two stylish and fun guys who grew their business to $20,000 a month off reselling old clothes.

Andrew: And they did it all on the side.

Fish Market Studio: It was never like I was gonna make a full blown business out of it.

Fish Market Studio: It was more so like, I just wanted a little extra money for myself.

Andrew: Just like some side hustle. – Yeah.

Andrew: But of course, like any business, they faced a few setbacks.

Andrew: They had to quickly learn to overcome it.

Fish Market Studio: When we got that news, it was a lot of, “Okay, what do we do now?” Like, it was like your whole way of life and the way that you run your business was totally different.

Andrew: My name is Andrew, and today we’re exploring what it takes to run a vintage shop and meeting the lovely people behind it.

Andrew: Enjoy the video.

Andrew: Why is it called Fish Market Studio?

Fish Market Studio: Growing up, my dad was actually a fisherman in the Philippines.

Andrew: Oh, that’s why, okay.

Fish Market Studio: So he was definitely like, fish and like, just like the act of like selling fish too.

Fish Market Studio: Like, I just found it like kind of a cool mix to have like my cultural background as well as like.

Andrew: Super cool.

Fish Market Studio: What we do now.

Andrew: I think of the Seattle fish market when you get to talk to me.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, Pike Place.

Andrew: Yeah, Pike Place.

Andrew: All right guys, since we are at a vintage shop, I think it’s only fitting that I’m dressed in a vintage outfit.

Andrew: So I have to ask, I have to ask, can we go through the pieces and you pick out the best pieces you think will look good on me and give you a vintage outfit?

Fish Market Studio: Dude, yeah, of course.

Fish Market Studio: We got you, man.

Fish Market Studio: We got some stuff in mind, so we’ll bless you today.

Andrew: Okay, where do we start?

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, so I mean like definitely the base of your outfit.

Fish Market Studio: We’re working with like a base-y shirt and some pads.

Fish Market Studio: So I think we like the shirt right now, but we can definitely do better.

Fish Market Studio: So I think with the fall season right around the corner, let’s go with like a jacket.

Fish Market Studio: What do you think?

Andrew: Sure, let’s do it.

Andrew: You’re the master.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, so I’m thinking we could go for a little bit of flair.

Fish Market Studio: Like, since the outfit is simple right now, you could go for a racing jacket.

Fish Market Studio: These ones are really popular right now.

Andrew: Is it? Okay.

Fish Market Studio: Just as a statement piece.

Fish Market Studio: Try that one on.

Andrew: Cool.

Andrew: All right, what’s next?

Fish Market Studio: We gotta go to the pants over there.

Fish Market Studio: So we’ll head over there right now.

Fish Market Studio: So I think we’re gonna go with some Y2K pants.

Fish Market Studio: The brand here we got is Mecca, and these are some medium wash.

Fish Market Studio: Nothing too wide, but a little straight leg too.

Fish Market Studio: Wide pants have definitely been resurging over the last couple of years.

Fish Market Studio: Baggy, 2000s kind of style.

Andrew: I was made fun of in grade eight for wearing baggy pants, dude.

Andrew: Like I was, I had the trends back.

Andrew: Okay, all right.

Andrew: So is this a fit or what else do I need?

Fish Market Studio: Oh, we’re not done yet.

Fish Market Studio: I think we need some shoes, man.

Andrew: Okay, let’s do it. – Yeah, let’s do it.

Fish Market Studio: All right, so here’s our shoe section.

Fish Market Studio: It’s not the biggest.

Fish Market Studio: We try and curate some shoes, some that are in style, stuff like that.

Fish Market Studio: I think for the fit that we’re going with today, we’re gonna go with the Docs.

Andrew: Ooh, okay.

Fish Market Studio: Another really popular shape that’s been coming up.

Fish Market Studio: A lot of people dress it with like the baggy pants, casual as well.

Fish Market Studio: So I think these will be perfect for the fit as well.

Fish Market Studio: Okay. – There you are.

Andrew: Let’s do it.

Andrew: And then, is that it or?

Fish Market Studio: Oh, we’re not done yet.

Fish Market Studio: I think every fit is incomplete without accessories.

Fish Market Studio: That’s just my personal thing.

Fish Market Studio: So I was thinking maybe throwing on some vintage silver jewelry for you.

Fish Market Studio: This is all like our vintage Italian 1925 bracelets.

Fish Market Studio: We sell like necklaces too.

Fish Market Studio: So I was thinking maybe you, this is like a statement piece.

Fish Market Studio: This one here.

Fish Market Studio: And then I was thinking throwing on like simple little gun necklace.

Andrew: Okay, sure.

Fish Market Studio: Just for you today.

Andrew: Okay.

Andrew: Thank you.

Andrew: All right.

Fish Market Studio: Maybe take those ones as well with you.

Fish Market Studio: And then to finish off the look, and so your pants don’t fall to the ground.

Fish Market Studio: Right, his white pants.

Andrew: Okay.

Fish Market Studio: Got a little aviator belt for you.

Andrew: Aviator.

Andrew: Okay.

Andrew: Top gun.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah.

Fish Market Studio: Now I think you’re all set.

Andrew: That’s it?

Fish Market Studio: Yeah.

Fish Market Studio: I think we’re ready.

Fish Market Studio: You’re ready.

Andrew: Okay, let’s get changed.

Andrew: Dude, this is sick.

Fish Market Studio: Damn, bro.

Fish Market Studio: How do you feel?

Andrew: I feel like a different person.

Andrew: I feel so like a gangster, man.

Fish Market Studio: Dude, like everything fits pretty well.

Andrew: Yeah, no, it’s perfect.

Fish Market Studio: I’m glad like the pants fit, the shoes fit.

Andrew: Jack fits well.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, nice.

Fish Market Studio: Dude, this is like– It’s a good fit.

Fish Market Studio: Ready, three, two, one, action.

Andrew: What can you tell me about your early childhood to help me understand who you guys are today?

Fish Market Studio: I guess I didn’t really grow up with like a lot of money.

Fish Market Studio: So like, we were definitely not like poor, but like we were definitely, I come from a single family home.

Fish Market Studio: So there was a lot of like, not having the things that like maybe my friends had.

Fish Market Studio: Like everyone in high school, like we want to get the best stuff.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, nice things.

Fish Market Studio: Clothes.

Fish Market Studio: But just not having the funds.

Fish Market Studio: So to fix that, I would go to like thrift stores, finding things like t-shirts for like five bucks.

Fish Market Studio: And I’d be like wearing it the next day.

Fish Market Studio: Like people would be like, “Well, where’d you get that from?” Well, definitely not from the mall.

Fish Market Studio: And then when I started just like selling it to other people, that’s when I was like, I saw the potential of like, okay, maybe this, maybe I could like make a bit of extra money on the side.

Andrew: What made you decide to wanna sell it to other people?

Fish Market Studio: Well, at that point, like I’d been thrifting for a while.

Fish Market Studio: So then I was like selling clothes, you know, finding things that people wanted.

Fish Market Studio: And I was like, hey, like, you’ll pay me $60 for this t-shirt that I bought for $5.

Fish Market Studio: That’s when like things clicked where I was like, okay, that makes sense.

Fish Market Studio: Funny story is one big event that’s still going on today is a sneaker con.

Andrew: Yep.

Fish Market Studio: And me and Graham had like a bunch of sneakers still back then, but we were kind of transitioning into selling clothes.

Fish Market Studio: And I was like, Graham, just bring like your t-shirts and some stuff.

Fish Market Studio: and we’re like, but this is a shoe convention.

Fish Market Studio: So we went to the shoe convention and there’s this thing called the training pit.

Fish Market Studio: And we go to the training pit, Graham lays all of his like t-shirts and some sweaters, some small things, sold everything.

Andrew: What was that moment where you’re like, wait, this can be a real business?

Fish Market Studio: That summer, 2021, we actually got the opportunity to sell at a shop and it’s called Gore Street Vintage.

Andrew: Gore Street Vintage, okay.

Fish Market Studio: And it happening was, I don’t know, we had maybe like 500 items in the shop.

Fish Market Studio: And that’s when like the serious like money, cashflow started coming in.

Fish Market Studio: We were like, holy shit, we can actually maybe make this into something bigger.

Fish Market Studio: Like where it’s like a cash flows more.

Fish Market Studio: In the first month, we were clearing like roughly 10.

Andrew: Wow, okay.

Fish Market Studio: 10 grand.

Andrew: What can you expect a vintage store like yours make roughly in a month?

Fish Market Studio: If I’m to give like rough estimates upwards to like 15 or 20 a month, but again, like it all depends on your overhead.

Fish Market Studio: I think our biggest cost is the actual like hiring and employees, like payroll, right? It’s a huge thing.

Andrew: How many employees do you have?

Fish Market Studio: It’s just four of us, right? So four co-owners.

Fish Market Studio: So we’re technically owners and employees.

Andrew: Okay.

Andrew: Okay.

Fish Market Studio: Trying to keep the cost at a minimum.

Andrew: Yeah, of course.

Fish Market Studio: While trying to be at the shop and do our thing.

Andrew: So just paying yourself.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah.

Fish Market Studio: Paying yourself.

Andrew: Yeah, okay.

Fish Market Studio: Obviously, the lease costs, hydro, internet, security, our overhead altogether is probably around like $8,000.

Andrew: That’s including space and pay yourself?

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, if I’m just like off the top of my head.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, around like $8,000.

Andrew: Where do you guys source your clothes?

Fish Market Studio: Not as complicated as you’d think.

Fish Market Studio: Definitely, we still thrift at thrift stores.

Fish Market Studio: So anytime we can.

Fish Market Studio: Even like mom and pop shops.

Fish Market Studio: So not even the big retailers like Value Village.

Fish Market Studio: But we’re still, you know, always on the hunt at those places.

Fish Market Studio: Like we always say like that’s probably the funnest part of the job.

Fish Market Studio: Is the actual curating and finding all the clothes.

Fish Market Studio: Because I don’t know, there’s just like…

Fish Market Studio: You think about it too, like there’s so much clothes just everywhere.

Fish Market Studio: Just in the world.

Andrew: In the world.

Fish Market Studio: There’s so much clothes.

Fish Market Studio: So thrift stores is one, and then we also do in-store buyouts.

Fish Market Studio: We actually buy from the community, so people have the opportunity to come and shop.

Fish Market Studio: We take a look at their clothes.

Fish Market Studio: If there’s anything we like, we will offer cash or store credit.

Fish Market Studio: And then the last one, a bit of a trade secret, but we do go to a warehouse.

Fish Market Studio: It’s like a textiles recycling warehouse where a lot of the clothes that we get is on its last eggs.

Fish Market Studio: So we’re definitely searching through piles of clothes that are about to get chopped up or about to get shipped off to other countries.

Fish Market Studio: So we actually get the opportunity to go through these clothes and kind of curate the ones that we want for the shop.

Andrew: As you were doing this business, what was some of the biggest problems you faced?

Andrew: Did you have any like huge problems?

Fish Market Studio: I mean, yeah, we had like some setbacks for sure.

Fish Market Studio: I think definitely with certain timelines, like we were, like the stores that we were in were like transitioning into not having any vendors. When we got that news, it was a lot of “okay, what do we do now?” Like, it was like your whole way of like life and like the way that you run your business was like totally different. In a way it almost forced us to grow as people and as a business because it pushed us to like open up our own store right we were like hey like there’s no way we can make that income back without having our own space to sell out of. And so transitioning out of their store and kind of like into our store that kind of middle period was you know we would have to how are we gonna make money are we gonna post more online Are we gonna sell online?

Fish Market Studio: Are we, we didn’t even have a website at that point.

Fish Market Studio: So we were just like, should we make a website?

Fish Market Studio: So at that point, we were kind of brainstorming that we would get together, brainstorm like what we should we do next?

Fish Market Studio: Like, should we open a store?

Fish Market Studio: Like, is there an opportunity for us somewhere that we can open?

Fish Market Studio: So we would all be looking, you know, and, and that’s the beauty of like having a great team.

Fish Market Studio: Our team is very like specific, like, like Arnold’s like my brother-in-law.

Andrew: Right.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah.

Fish Market Studio: Our other two members are my wife.

Andrew: Yep.

Fish Market Studio: Who’s a sister.

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, and then my brother.

Andrew: Wow, it’s very close.

Fish Market Studio: It’s very close, like the team that you curate for like your business too, it’s like really important.

Fish Market Studio: We know how each of us like interact and work together.

Fish Market Studio: This business is so such a blessing, but like to work with your family is like, I feel like the bigger like reward.

Andrew: There’s two other very popular vintage shops like on the street, right?

Andrew: How do you handle the competition?

Andrew: Like, how come this was still a very good location to be at?

Fish Market Studio: It’s competition, but it’s also like…

Fish Market Studio: where we become like a community.

Fish Market Studio: So people actually like…

Fish Market Studio: A lot of people will hit every shop.

Andrew: That’s true.

Fish Market Studio: Right. So we become almost like a destination, versus like, “Okay, I’m gonna go to that store, not this store.” And that’s the beauty of a thrift store, is at each store, you know, there are main pieces that everyone will always get, like, you know, Stussy and vintage tees.

Fish Market Studio: We also…

Fish Market Studio: it’s kind of part of our personality to like curate certain things and you know people would come in and be like I really like Your guys’s stuff that you guys collect that you guys curate and other stores would also have their own kind of style and curation. Every shop is different. Yeah.

Andrew: For people who are thinking of starting their own vintage shop or getting into reselling this what advice would you tell them?

Andrew: What advice do you wish you had known or someone told you at the start?

Fish Market Studio: To just start I think definitely takes a lot of consistency for myself understanding like that you can do it. You just need to start somewhere. I know not everyone is gonna have the same cash flow or whatever but I think even starting small like even starting with what you’re interested in like it could be shoes it can be hats it could be pants it could be like anything but I think just starting somewhere and building your base. It’s all about building your base because without consistency, without that stuff, believing in yourself, you won’t start.

Fish Market Studio: So just pushing yourself to at least start somewhere.

Andrew: So I’m starting a tradition on the show where I will ask business owners, what question do you want to ask the next business owner?

Andrew: And as you can imagine, I will also ask you the question that was asked by the previous owner.

Andrew: So this was the question that the previous business owner wanted to ask you.

Andrew: And I’ll play it for you here.

Andrew: I think a question I would ask myself, so I want to ask other business owners is if you had an extra $5,000, $5,000 to $10,000 that you can invest back into your business every month, where would it be or what would it go to?

Fish Market Studio: Okay, good question.

Fish Market Studio: I would definitely work on marketing.

Fish Market Studio: Marketing is definitely one of those things that I feel we don’t prioritize as much, but I would love to put money towards that.

Fish Market Studio: And then the second thing would probably be trying to expand and see if we can open up somewhere else or have a second location.

Fish Market Studio: And then probably go for a vacation.

Fish Market Studio: That would be sick too.

Fish Market Studio: Extra 5, 10k, they’ll find me in the Bahamas.

Fish Market Studio: Or somewhere in Mexico.

Andrew: Okay, okay.

Andrew: And then what question do you want to ask the next business owner that I interview?

Fish Market Studio: Yeah, definitely something that I’ve struggled with in this business, so just curious to see what they would say, is how you got over the self-doubt of opening a business and what helped push you to start, ’cause everyone has that starting point, but what pushed them to actually take it seriously at the start, yeah.

Andrew: There you go, there you have it.

Andrew: This is Fish Market Studio or RC Thrift.

Andrew: Thank you, Graham.

Fish Market Studio: Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew: Thank you, Arnold.

Andrew: Thank you so much. – This was fun.

Andrew: And yeah, I mean, if you’re in Vancouver or if you happen to be here and you want some clothes, come to a vintage shop.

Andrew: Like they say, you don’t need new clothes.

Andrew: You don’t need new clothes.

Andrew: Just come to a vintage shop.

Andrew: Come to Fish Market Studio on Main Street here in Mount Pleasant.

Andrew: We’ll link it down below.

Andrew: And yeah, if you found this video helpful or entertaining, drop a like and comment down below questions you have for them and make sure to subscribe because we have more interviews coming up soon.

Andrew: and you know you said okay express yourself so they just Dude, I love MapleStory.

Andrew: Oh yeah.

Andrew: (laughing)

Andrew: I don’t know, so random.

Andrew: Okay.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew: Sorry.

Fish Market Studio: What?

Fish Market Studio: Bro, you just interrupted our whole interview, bro.

Fish Market Studio: Swear.

Fish Market Studio: Well, anyways, what?

Fish Market Studio: Is this important?

Fish Market Studio: Maybe, I’ll call you back.