BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:

After seven years in business as one of the top online vintage sites, Unique Vintage has brought its boutique from the owner’s home to Magnolia Boulevard.

Katie Echeverry, owner of Unique Vintage, said she would not have taken the leap if her website was not growing.

“Even though the economy is not doing well, there is a shift of people going from shopping at stores to shopping online,” she said.

About 25 percent of the store’s customers are international, so her clientele are more likely to find her website than a boutique in Burbank.

But Echeverry said the size of her business has grown too large, and it can no longer be run out of her guest room in her Burbank home.

She said the number of orders peaks during prom season, with almost 100 shipments a day.

When she began Unique Vintage as a hobby, she sold her antique finds at a slow pace, but in 2003, the website was featured in Glamour magazine, and sales began to boom.

As the business grew, Echeverry expanded her business by adding a sales manager — a position that was filled by her then baby-sitter, Kimberly Forquer, who had a background in fashion merchandising.

“We both got lucky because I just live five houses away from her — it just fell into place,” Forquer said.

With a laid-back business approach, Echeverry said she is different from other entrepreneurs because she began her business as a hobby and not as a main source of income.

Formally trained in pharmaceutical sales, she is experiencing the same risk that she faced when she left her job to be a full-time dot-com business owner.

Now, with her own Burbank boutique, she said she feels the time is right to start a new project.

“I grew up in Burbank, so I knew Magnolia was the right place,” Echeverry said.

A graduate of Burbank High School, she will cater to teenagers, offering them affordable dresses for school dances.

“Regardless of how the economy is, a mother will always buy her daughter a prom dress,” she said.

Mothers prefer Unique Vintage dresses, she said, because they are not as revealing or expensive as the other dresses being sold at department stores.

Echeverry said she quickly learned that collecting and selling antique clothing was a business with many restraints, due to limited quantity and high demand.

The store sells reproductions of vintage clothing ranging from flapper dresses to full-skirt dresses and pin-up girl bathing suits.

FYI

WHAT: Unique Vintage, Katie Echeverry owner

WHERE: 2013 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, CA 91506

CONTACT: 818-953-2877; 800-721-6589 (toll free); 818-953-5045 (fax)