WELCOME TO THE MASS STATE VINTAGE ONLINE SHOP!
Although an overwhelming majority of my sales are through eBay and Etsy, I have always had the desire to have my own store that cuts out the middle man and reduces the amount of fees I have to deal with. The store also serves as a creative outlet for me to do some graphic design and coding.
When I started resale during college in Jonesboro, AR (wolves up!) as "870 Vintage" back in 2018, I ran an online storefront through Square that I eventually let fizzle out. Square changed a lot about how they run their online storefronts during that time so I didn't mind leaving.
When I lived in Memphis for grad school (doing business as "Mid South Vintage"), I ran my own storefront through a Wordpress site. This was basically my intro to web design, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, etc., and I learned a lot through putting a barebones website together. However, I didn't have much time to maintain the site while in grad school and most of my sales were through other channels so I eventually ditched the idea of a website.
Fast forward to 2026 and I am selling full-time on eBay, Mercari, Poshmark, Depop, Grailed, Etsy, and a few other marketplaces. The idea to start another storefront arose after ordering a custom Darth Maul tee from Mass Vintage. I've always had a ton of respect for what Dan does over there and ordering from him was what gave me the inspiration for starting a Shopify store. I'd also heard what seemed like hours of Shopify ads on the radio, podcasts, YouTube, etc. so I figured it was a good time to start another online store.
I've always been attracted to the retro aesthetics of Windows 95 and have already used it as inspiration for my initial Mass State Vintage website that houses links to my marketplace accounts as well as my event calendar. With this Shopify site I wanted to create something even more retro, inspired by the 90s PC aesthetic and the art style for the game Nubby's Number Factory. I love the old Geocities/Angelfire look, crusty/wiggly GIFs, etc. and think I did a good job of incorporating that into the site. All of the site's graphic design was done by me, such as the product photo borders and custom GIF buttons:
GIF generation in Sony Vegas
Product frame creation in Photoshop
Aside from site design, getting everything correct on the backend also took a lot of time. I already have 1000+ items listed online through Vendoo, which is an awesome service that allows for inventory management across multiple online marketplaces. This service thankfully has Shopify integration so I've been able A) list all new products to this site and B) comb through products I already have listed to get them listed here. As for the latter, I still have many products in my inventory that need to be listed here but I will get to them as time goes on.
Overall, I'm super happy with how this site turned out. I am also happy that it has allowed me to keep my graphic design/coding skills sharp. Both of these skills were very valuable when I was in grad school and I am thankful to be able to put them to good use on my current path.
I'll be updating this blog intermittently with new events I'll be at, lists of cool items I've found in the past, and various other musings. Thanks for stopping by!