Reilly Rozewicz continued an entrepreneurial venture in reselling clothing online and developed skills in retail operations and Excel.
How did you get your internship and why did you choose it?
I knew the internship I wanted to do was an entrepreneurial-based experience, so I didn’t have to apply to any “traditional” internships that were posted online. I had previously used Depop in high school as a fashion reselling business and had been using it throughout college when I would go through my closet, so I’m very familiar with the app. I chose this internship option because I used to love the process and good feeling that came when I would make a sale on my Depop. I also like being able to do things my way and to be in charge of the reselling process.
What kind of work did you do throughout your internship experience?
Throughout my internship I did a multitude of things including constant sharing of my items in the app, logging financial details into an Excel sheet, taking photos of clothes, posting clothes, and then packing and shipping my item to the customer. Reselling has always felt easy because a lot of these processes go quick because I can do most of those tasks on my phone. I prioritized updating the items available because it gets your posts at the top of the feed, which gets it out to more potential buyers. Creating a more formalized system for tracking my finances in the shop was something new that I did for this internship because, previously, I didn’t keep track of how much money I was making or have a way to better track my inventory. As the internship went on, I got more organized and the process of posting to shipping became much more streamlined.
How was the internship related to your Applied Humanities degree?
Reselling and operating a business relates to my Applied Humanities degree because it is a business where customer service is key and you have to know how to talk to people in a way that they respond well to. Customers can be difficult sometimes, whether it's people making low-ball offers on products, ghosting you after making an offer, or just being plain rude. No matter how they behave, if you’re in retail, you still have to try to work with them. A lot of the concepts we learned in the PAH 498: Senior Capstone course helped me in this internship since we spent a lot of time learning how to describe different personalities using assessments like the Enneagram and Myers Briggs Test. Since my Applied Humanities emphasis is in Business Administration, I was also able to apply a lot of my knowledge of marketing to my internship to the digital space.
What was your favorite or most satisfying part of your internship?
My favorite and most satisfying part of my internship was making sales and earning money. It's the best feeling and is something that can make your whole day. I also pivoted to using a different shipping method to cut costs on postage compared to what you would get charged for shipping in a retail store. Shipping used to be a challenge of my Depop because I would end up under charging and end up losing money once the fees taken by Depop were assessed. Being able to ship items and make a couple extra dollars in profit from my reduced shipping costs made me feel really accomplished in my problem-solving.
What did you find challenging about your internship?
The most challenging part about my internship were the slumps when people weren’t buying on the app. This made me feel bad and led to having feelings of imposter syndrome because I had always equated sales to success. But in reality, algorithms can be hard to figure out and sometimes you have to experiment to problem-solve when using online platforms. From this challenge, I started on my Excel sheet for my financials which I knew would take up a lot of time and focused effort to fill that time since I was still developing my skills in Excel.