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Vinterior may not have any showrooms or shops, but the home of the founder and chief executive, Sandrine Zhang Ferron, has plenty of finds from the classy secondhand furnishings site – from quirky vases to a vintage drinks cabinet.
Zhang Ferron, who was born in China but grew up in France, readily admits that she created the site for herself, ditching her well-paid job in finance, after struggling to find interesting pieces to furnish her London home after a move to the UK.
“I realised I don’t want to do that for the rest of my life, you know, helping rich people getting richer,” she says, speaking to the Guardian at her home with her cat Misifu – a male British Blue – mooching around.
“I spent literally three months finding my yellow Poul Volther chair, which I eventually bought in a small shop in Hackney.
“You know, it can be fun, but also, if you’ve got to buy a lot, it can be like, ‘I just don’t have time for this.’”
After talking over the idea of creating an online marketplace for vintage furniture with a few well-placed friends, Zhang Ferron says “I went to my boss and said OK, I’m gonna quit because I’m gonna learn to code.”
One former colleague told her at the time: “It’s never going to work”, and potential investors, most of whom were men, felt the idea was “so niche” that the market would be tiny. But she went all in anyway. “I wanted to be fully committed to it. I never really thought about it as doing a side hustle.”
Zhang Ferron signed up for a three-month course with Makers Academy, the training scheme that promises to help “the best people in Britain pivot into tech” as she felt that this would give her the skills, contacts and the necessary understanding to build a digital business – even if she was going to bring in more experienced tech experts later.
She then began approaching people she knew who might want to sell expensive pieces of furniture they no longer wanted. “It was a big flop,” she admits.
After a rethink, she began trying to persuade London furniture dealers to list on her site, tempting them with exceptionally good terms with the aim of finding 200 must-have products to launch with.
Having realised that most of the dealers were small businesses who didn’t have the time, knowledge or interest to list things online, she offered to create posts for them for little or even no cost. A dozen signed up initially.
The site’s first sale in January 2016 was a pair of Belgian mid-century armchairs. It quickly became apparent that Zhang Ferron was not the only one looking for an easier way to buy vintage furniture. By the following year the site had hit £1m in sales and annual sales via the site hit more than £16.5m in the last year – up 15% in a tough market.
Vinterior now has just over half a million pieces listed on it, the vast majority of which come from 2,600 professional dealers and the rest from design-conscious individuals or sellers.
More than 100,000 customers are signed up after the company invested in its first TV ads and it has gradually extended its ranges beyond the trend for mid-century classics to Victoriana and art deco, among others.
Vinterior had a bit of luck securing half a million of extra funding from its investors in February 2020 – just before the Covid pandemic hit the UK.
That cash was good to have in the back pocket as shoppers locked away their wallets during the first weeks of lockdown as they battled the challenges of a pandemic.
“The first few weeks of Covid were so scary. Nothing happened.”
It was particularly tough for Zhang Ferron as she was about to go on maternity leave. But the team conserved limited cash, working part-time or taking furlough, and then sales started to take off.
As physical shops across the country were forced to close for several months, and the manufacturing and deliveries of many large items such as furniture were blocked, secondhand goods that could be sourced online – and delivered quickly rather than being stuck on a container ship – were in demand.
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The pandemic also shone a spotlight on how items were being transported and made in far away places, helping fuel interest in more sustainable choices that had already been kicked off by the rise of vintage clothing sites such as Depop and Vinted.
“Covid was definitely an accelerator,” Zhang Ferron says, adding that it helped to attract new shoppers and an additional £8m in funding in 2021.
It sparked a shift in mindset so that buying secondhand became “more of a norm,” she says. “Obviously, gen Z like the idea of resale and most people are more open to it. It doesn’t feel like it is cheap.”
That rise in demand came with its own challenges. Like many other online specialists, Vinterior believed the pandemic had kicked off a complete change in consumer behaviour and shoppers would not return to physical shops in quite the same way.
When the inevitable pause in growth came as the pandemic subsided, Zhang Ferron realised the company had “made some bad decisions” but it was lucky that it had been careful about spending.
There was some painful adjustment in the wider market, with the online furniture seller Made.com and others collapsing, but Vinterior continued to expand after a brief lull, despite wider problems in furniture retail amid a lacklustre housing market and a squeeze on disposable income.
Sales are set to rise by a fifth this year.
The uncertain geopolitical environment could be a challenge as shoppers rein in spending. However, Zhang Ferron says Donald Trump’s tariff war is not necessarily all bad news.
“We could see this shift making our platform even more attractive to premium UK and EU dealers who currently sell a lot to US customers and may now seek to diversify due to increased barriers,” she says.
To many of Zhang Ferron’s customers, finding the right piece is an emotional more than a financial call and they still feel they are making savings despite some eye-watering prices. Paying more than £2,000 for a sought-after Ligne Roset Togo sofa on Vinterior can still be more than a third cheaper than a new one and it can be delivered right away.
She argues that vintage pieces can also hold their value more than new items – something that buyers take into account.
Zhang Ferron can also attest to years of enjoyment. “The yellow Poul Volther chair that sparked the idea for Vinterior is still one of my most treasured pieces,” she says. And that sceptical former colleague? His wife apparently refurnished their home with pieces from Vinterior.
