Vintage Retail: Applied Case Study (Hobby)
Vintage Retail is a hobby retail venture that I run on my free time.
I am genuinely interested in vintage and antique objects, especially the uniqueness of items that were handmade and tailored to their future user.
I also use the venture as a practical case study to apply my technical expertise and develop new skills.
I build small applications and lightweight automation to support recurring tasks in listing, pricing, promotion, and workflow tracking.
The project helps me develop skills that are less central in my current professional role, including unit economics, marketing experiments, inventory management, and operational decision-making.
It is also a useful contrast with my computer science background, because it forces prioritisation of simple tools that deliver value, while keeping feature complexity under control.
KPIs
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ROI 172.6%
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Inventory ~70 items
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Sell through rate 12.67%
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Fun 100%
Why it matters professionally
Vintage Retail is a practical setting where I act as both the system designer and the end user of my own tools.
It strengthens my ability to translate AI methods into simple workflows with clear business metrics, real constraints, and fast feedback.
It also highlights a recurring engineering trade off: building only the features that create measurable value, rather than over engineering.
What I do
Sourcing and opportunity discovery
I perform product search to identify items with resale potential before visiting flea markets and online listings. I focus on signals such as demand, rarity, and comparable sold prices.
Negotiation and real time deal evaluation
I negotiate deals in flea markets and evaluate profitability fast, considering platform fees and expected resale price.
Post purchase research and listing creation
After buying, I analyse item history, details, and intended use, then create listings for online marketplaces such as eBay.
Distribution and community based promotion
I identify where potential buyers are active across platforms and communities, and adapt product communication to match channel and audience expectations.
AI and tooling projects
SEO optimised listing description pipeline Lead
Automated pipeline that uses LLMs to generate marketplace ready descriptions with an emphasis on SEO and channel appropriate tone.
Status: In use
Real time profit and fees calculator (Deal Checker app) Lead
Android application that estimates profit while negotiating. It uses item category and incorporates eBay fees in real time to support fast buy decisions.
Automated promotion and community posting Lead
Planned system to identify relevant public groups and communities, extract listing content, and generate tailored promotion posts that match platform language and user expectations.
Status: Planned
Inventory tracking and search Lead
Planned inventory system to manage and search a growing catalogue. Current scale is around 100 items and manual tracking is becoming a bottleneck.
Status: Planned