Alana’s grandfather immigrated to West Texas from Europe in 1952 and joined an existing retail/wholesale business with other family members who had ventured to the US before him. From there, the family business was born and eventually passed down to his son, Alana’s father Tanny. Every weekend, Alana would head to the warehouses with him, running around the mazes formed by walls of stacked boxes while he worked.
Eventually, when due to changes in the business, Alana’s father decided it was time to close the doors to their wholesale business, Alana had other plans. In 2022, Alana visited the warehouses she had once explored as a child, and was blown away by what she found.. With thousands of still-unopened boxes, containing items in their original packaging, it was like a time capsule. So she scoured the inventory and made it her mission to share these treasures with people who would appreciate them. From there, Alana launched her vintage e-retail store, Opa’s Vintage Gal.
As the owner of an e-commerce business, Alana has a lot of shipping needs. That’s where PostNet comes in. As Alana’s trusted shipping partner, PostNet is an extension of her team, ensuring these “new” vintage items arrive to their buyers in their original condition. Beyond shipping, Alana partners with PostNet for signage at vintage shows, printing marketing collateral, and design expertise to build a strong visual identity.
Read more about Alana’s journey as a small business owner and how PostNet helps her thrive:
I’ve spent my entire career in corporate America. SinceI was 20 years old, I’ve worked for huge corporations. So the idea of shifting away from what perceived as a safety net into starting your own small business, where you’re responsible for all the things, and you don’t have that safety net, is a little overwhelming because you don’t know how, or if, you’re going to be able to provide for yourself the way you’ve been able to through working through other companies.
It’s exciting. Of course, there’s so much excitement in being able to do whatever you want. But there’s also a lot of fear and anxiety that comes with starting a new business because you are worried about whether or not you’ll be able to see your dream through.
Taking small steps is better than taking no steps. When you get this idea that you want to start your own small business, you get excited at first, and then all of a sudden, you start writing out what that means, and it can get overwhelming fast. I think a lot of people, at that point, are like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this’ because they see it all laid out, and that scares them. I wish at that point someone would have said, ‘You don’t have to be everything right away. You can slowly work into being the best version of your business over time. Just making a little bit of progress is better than always striving for perfection and wasting time.’
I love my relationship with PostNet, because they are the backbone of my success. I stumbled into PostNet before I had Opa’s Vintage Gal, when I was doing work for a favorite cancer organization. I came in following a charity event that required me to ship art to people globally. This art was truly priceless. I looked at the lady behind the counter, and said, ‘I’m carrying pieces of art that are incredibly important, and I need to get them to their owners safely. I don’t know how to pack art, but I need to make sure this art gets to these people in the most inexpensive way because I’m a non-for-profit. I need this to be a really good experience.’ Amber, the manager at the Far West Blvd PostNet in Austin, was like, ‘I got you.’
So, for weeks, I would come in with these art pieces, and we would work together on how to package them. She would make us both feel comfortable about how they would get to the buyer in the most inexpensive way possible. We built a relationship. She made me feel confident that I could bring priceless pieces of art into PostNet 30 times and that she would guard those pieces of art so carefully. We worked together on that project for a few months. Then, I did the event again the next year, and we had more pieces of art to ship. So, of course, I went right back in and worked with Amber and the team. By then, I knew everybody at PostNet because they all wanted to know, ‘What is this art? What do you bring in here all the time?’ Some of the pieces were humongous. Some of them were tiny. Some were sculptures. They cared about what I was doing, which was another reason they became an extension of my team.
I kept doing that for a couple of years and formed a relationship there. By the time I decided to open Opa’s Vintage Gal, it was so easy for me to say, ‘Of course I’m going to partner with PostNet. They know me. I know them. I know that I can trust them. Now that I had an e-commerce business, I needed somewhere to receive my mail because I didn’t want packages and returns coming to my home. So, I got a mailbox with PostNet, which brought me in even more often. From there, I was bringing all my packages in for Opa’s Vintage.. I ship through PostNet even if the package is already labeled because I trust that the PostNet team is going to look at my package and make sure that it’s taped properly and any old labels are covered up. All those little things allow me to be able to be effective. It gives me time to focus on areas where I can be more impactful.
As I work towards showcasing all this cool vintage inventory, I’ve started presenting at vintage shows in Austin. Christian is an incredible designer at my local PostNet in Austin who has an eye for everything design. While he helped me build out all my signage for my shows, he also helped me create better visual aspects of my business. PostNet goes above and beyond the call of duty. The relationships I have with the people at my PostNet not only help me do things more efficiently but they make my company stronger by being partners I can lean on and bounce ideas off of.
The minute that I have a need, I go straight to PostNet. Naturally, as my business evolves, I need more services. When a new need arises, I don’t do it anywhere else. I’m already at PostNet doing so many other things. Price and value are both important as well to ensure I’m making smart decisions about my spending. I get so many coupons from different printing companies, but I know I can email PostNet, and I don’t even have to tell them what I’m printing anymore. I’m just like, ‘Hey, you know that square thing? Can you print me 50 more of those?’ And within five minutes, they say, ‘Come pick it up.’ With PostNet, I know that it’s going to get done and get done right. I know they’re going to check it. By the time I pick it up, I can just take it and go do what I need to do. It’s nice to have that trust.
Nostalgia. I love that I have a really interesting business that not everybody knows much about but that everybody can relate to. So many people are panicking about things that we can’t control in life. The I bring people comfort and take them back.I’m noticing that the people I’m selling to are nostalgic. 90 percent of the time, my customers buy something because it reminds them of a simpler time when they felt more in control of their lives. It reminds them of a grandparent, a father, or something they had when they were teenagers, and they can’t believe I have it. Connecting people back to things that make them genuinely happy is the whole reason why I’m doing this. When you have a boombox from 1980 that reminds you of your high school years, the things you used to do back then, and the cassette you used to listen to, all of that nostalgia comes with it. I can see people light up, and that is for sure the best part of this journey.The future of Opa’s Vintage Gal is exciting! From revolutionizing vintage in all forms, to re-introducing unique pieces through modern collaboration, I can’t wait to find the right paths for getting these special items in hands that appreciate them! I’m already building partnerships with prop masters, home and commercial interior designers and collectors worldwide. The future is wide and tangible.
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