January 6, 2025
For some, balancing a job can be difficult on top of college classes and extracurriculars. Well, maybe that perspective can be changed when you are your own boss.
Welcome to the world of Faith Upshur, a sophomore at High Point University, who isn't just your average student. She’s a small business owner as well. Having a passion for fashion, photography and anything in the creative marketing aspect the app, Depop, called to Upshur right away.
“I knew I wanted to make money by myself in the most fun way possible. Depop seemed the easiest to work with and also was geared towards people my age, so I’d have a better chance at selling stuff,” Upshur said.
From clothes to jewelry to even handcrafted posters and prints, Depop is an app for anyone by anyone. That’s right, there are a bunch of sellers of all ages and backgrounds who also spread their love of sustainability and fashion. The app itself is very simple to navigate and has grown in popularity for the past couple of years. According to news.depop.com it states, “34 million items are available on Depop as well as 180,000 new listings every day.” Which means if you’re going through a time where you feel like you have nothing to wear, giving Depop a try is the way to go.
However, coming to terms with starting a business isn't an easy start. There are a lot of factors and preparation that come into play before one even starts posting listings or selling items. For example, here are some common questions that may go through a future small business owner's mind: How do I set up a shop? What supplies do I need? How do I market my products? How do I get sales at all? All these questions are what Faith struggled with at the start of her business.
“I had to figure out how to promote my shop. The Instagram I had wasn’t doing the best, so I shut it down temporarily until I got a better idea of how to edit pictures and videos. I mostly promoted my stuff through Depop anyway using different hashtags and listing “enhancers” like the colors and when that item was made,” said Upshur.
Despite being uncertain at first on how to even promote her shop it now has been up and running for officially two years. With over 100 sales and five-star reviews, her business is booming. Having supplies, like a proper label printer, are just one of the many ways that make the small business experience go a long way. Besides packaging, the dilemma of shipping also comes into play. Depop already offers their shipping where a bit of the money on a listing of yours gets deducted by a certain amount fee for a shipping label. However, there are other ways to ship stuff out. For example, using a website called Pirate Ship which is where you weigh and choose the packaging type of the product you want to ship out.
“Now, I chose to do a flat rate shipping cost and use a shipping platform called Pirate Ship. Most things in my shop are light, so $3 covers it. With Pirate Ship, I can get discounted shipping labels and still see where the package is,” said Upshur.
Despite the trials and tribulations of having a small business, Upshur has been cruising through with sales alongside and consistently has something to sell. With as much experience as she has, there also comes a learning curve, which will benefit her work ethic in the future.
“It does correlate with my major because we get to learn about different colors, materials, and styles, so that helps me learn how to describe the clothes I have currently. I also wanted to try my hand at entrepreneurship, so I think this is a perfect way to officially start,” said Upshur.
Overall, from starting out slowly, she now has a big business that keeps this fashion major on her feet. You can check out her shop on Depop @thepinkcreativ.