Junk in the Trunk went from backyard to major event
Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market, a semiannual sale that has attracted hundreds of thousands of shoppers to Scottsdale over the years, started with two dozen vendors in a Phoenix backyard a decade ago.
Every spring and fall, co-founders and co-owners Coley Arnold and Lindsey Holt bring more than 100 vintage curators, crafters, artisans and jewelers from across the country together at WestWorld of Scottsdale.
When they hosted their first market in September 2011, however, thrifting and vintage shopping were a niche hobby in the Valley.
“There wasn’t anything like that out here at all,” Arnold told The Arizona Republic. “No one got together under one roof
and had their goods displayed. I think Joanna Gaines made vintage shopping something super popular and more mainstream.”
Gaines, a designer, and her husband Chip starred in HGTV’s “Fixer Upper,” which aired its first season in 2014. They popularized a modern farmhouse-style of décor through their budget-friendly home renovations.
“So before that, we would tell people we owned a vintage market and they were like, ‘I don’t know what that means,’” Arnold said.
At the time, Arnold painted and sold furniture on Craigslist and Holt created barn wood signs that she sold on Etsy. Both grew up going to garage sales, thrift stores, antiques auctions and antiques stores, Lindsey Holt said.
“We were looking for places where we could go shop,” Holt said. “But really, the only places that existed for the most part were thrift stores and then a couple boutique stores around.”
Through their blog at the time, Junk in the Trunk Trio, Holt and Arnold found an online community in Phoenix that was passionate about handmade and vintage items. The trio included Monique Wallis, who stepped away in 2012, according to a blog post.
“Our husbands were like, ‘Why don’t you guys just do it yourselves?’ And both of us were moms who were sitting at home at the time and really enjoying a great creative outlet,” Arnold said. “But we never intended to start a business.”
“It really did explode pretty quickly once we started,” she said.
How Junk in the Trunk began
Before they organized their first market, Arnold and Holt frequently talked about how great it would be to sell their items in person rather than online. So when they learned of plans for a pop-up sale in Scottsdale in 2011, they were excited to apply.
Though their vendor application was accepted, the event never happened.
With the encouragement of their partners, they were inspired to host a market of their own in a friend’s backyard with sellers they’d met through their online community. Twenty-three vendors — including Staci Slade of Shabby Junker and Julie Shervin of Julie’s Home Décor, both of whom still sell at the markets — signed on.
With the help of a mention in the “Your Home” section of The Republic on
Sept. 17, 2011, 600 people showed up.
“If you love ‘all things chippy, rusty, vintage and handmade,’ check out the Vintage Market from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. today,” the blurb reads. “The free event at the Barn, 5401 E. Voltaire Ave., Phoenix, was organized by the folks behind the Junk in the Trunk blog.”
They estimate that over the course of five hours they sold thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise.
“Our husbands looked at us afterwards and said, ‘I think you started a business,’” Arnold said. “And it terrified us a little bit.”
They started getting “bombarded” with people asking when the next market would be. Holt and Arnold hustled to find a bigger venue. They landed on the parking lot at WestWorld of Scottsdale, where they estimate they doubled the number of vendors and attendees in May 2012.
“The vintage community was really wanting that. They all showed up,” Holt said.
After hosting several markets outdoors, a rainy forecast brought their market inside the tents at WestWorld. That was around the time Holt and Arnold stopped selling their own vintage finds and focused on planning and executing the event.
Eventually, they moved into WestWorld’s North Hall, which is where the April 23-25 market — their first since the pandemic canceled both of their 2020 Scottsdale events — is taking place with more than 130 vendors in a 100,000-square-foot space.
“Watching Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market grow from a small backyard market in 2011 to the amazing market you see today has been unreal,” Staci Slade of Shabby Junker told The Republic via email. “I never thought the market would grow to be this big.”
Junk in the Trunk expands to San Diego
It didn’t take long for messages to come in from across the country with requests for the market to visit other states.
It was an “easy choice” to select San Diego as their first out-of-state destination, Holt said. Since Arizonans flock to the coastal city during the summer, “We knew our shoppers would be there,” she said. Many vendors also come from California.
In addition to their summer market in San Diego, last February they hosted 106 vendors at the Pomona Fairplex, where the Los Angeles County Fair takes place each year.
After several seasons, Arnold and Holt, along with Holt’s husband Kevin, also a co-owner, started looking for a more permanent space.
In 2015, the three started looking for real estate for a “home base” that “serves the needs of what we felt like the community needed,” Kevin Holt said.
They chose the property at 4418 E. Osborn Road for The Vintage Arcadia, which consists of eatery Chestnut Fine Foods & Provisions, a retail store and two event spaces.
“It’s really something that we have been kind of dreaming up to continue to diversify from the larger gatherings,” he said.
‘COVID kind of pushed us’ to expand
After the owners had to cancel the April 2020 Junk in the Trunk market due to the coronavirus pandemic, they announced the launch of an online marketplace in May.
“COVID kind of pushed us to do it,” Arnold said. “We kept hearing stories of these vendors (who said) their livelihoods are markets.”
Items from 75 vendors were available on the market’s website, https://junkin thetrunkvintagemarket.com, with listings that include photos and information about the seller. Rather than going booth to booth, shoppers could make purchases and have them shipped.
The e-commerce platform now shows more than 1,500 products for sale.
The cancellation of the in-person market and temporary pause on events
in Arizona came almost three months after they’d opened The Vintage, which had been two years in the making.
“It certainly was obviously our most challenging year in business in our 10 years, without question,” Kevin Holt said. “The markets and our business is our livelihood for the three of us.”
Working on Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market is a full-time job for the Holts and Arnold.
“I think when we look back on last year, there is definitely a silver lining in it because it kind of pushed us to do things that maybe have been on the back burner for us for a while,” Kevin Holt said.
Starting in November, they experimented with a holiday pop-up market at Scottsdale Quarter that featured vendors’ items but not the vendors themselves, like a traditional boutique.
“That was a huge success,” Arnold said.
This prompted an invitation from Scottsdale Quarter to open a pop-up shop two doors down that would open for several months. The store carries merchandise from 25 vendors and will run through May.
What’s next for Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market
Despite requests to expand outside the state, the owners plan to concentrate on their Arizona businesses for the foreseeable future.
“We have since decided to just focus on Arizona only moving forward,” Kevin Holt said. “That was kind of a big thing that came out of COVID … focus less on expansion and focus more here in our home state as far as creating unique events and opportunities.”
As it is, they have “quite the extensive wait list” of vendors who want to sell at the market due to their effort to not oversaturate a single category with too many merchants.
“Over the years we’ve learned what the shoppers want, and sometimes it’s surprising to us what sells really well and what doesn’t,” Arnold said. “Knowing the trends and what’s popular at the time and taking all that (into) account” is important when determining a market’s lineup, she said.
Arnold and the Holts hope to create more opportunities for vendors by hosting more holiday pop-up markets across the Valley this year.
“I think if you asked Lindsey and Coley 10 years ago if they thought they would be doing markets 10 years later, they would have both laughed at you,” Kevin Holt said.
“I think a lot of it is just continuing to adapt and grow.”