Social media a launch pad for local business

From a basement business to being one of the most successful vintage and resale storefronts in Windsor, the boys behind Lowend Vintage shop are the poster children for the use of social media as a launch pad for small businesses.

Starting out with no experience in running a business, two former engineering students started selling their clothes on Instagram and slowly built it into a legitimate business.

“I was really focused on school, but as this started growing, I kind of like shifted focuses, and it was a little hard to really balance both,” said Hector Nilo, a founder and co-owner of Lowend.

“I ended up going to St. Clair, for pre-health because I wanted to be a nurse, I thought it would work out like that but this kind of kept taking off and I just kind of committed to this.”

By posting old clothes on Instagram, they were able to gain a healthy following of more than 7,000 people. It was at that point that they began to think about expanding from their own basement to a retail space in Windsor.

“It was just like, to a point where there’s too much to sometimes put on Instagram, like we do like 30 to 50 posts a day,” said Jed Cruz, another of the founders. “A bunch of people were like, ‘Why don’t you just open a store with all the inventory.’”

Since opening their store on Sandwich Street, they have expanded to a larger space on Pelissier Avenue in the downtown core. Their dreams of expansion don’t stop there.

“I’m hoping to open up more stores … take over the market in Windsor, because we really want to set our foot here in Windsor,” said Cruz.

Despite taking their business from the internet to a storefront, Instagram still plays a huge part in their business. Using the completely free platform, they can market themselves to a large audience with as many posts a day as they’d like.

The Lowend founders look to expand across Canada and capture the vintage name brand market in multiple cities as they continue to grow.