Jen Bute’s smile is easy and quick to flash, betraying a hint of mischievousness that borders on infectious.

But it’s also a mirror. It reflects a point in her life that’s steady and secure, but most of all, it reflects happiness from all the sales that she playfully labels as selling garbage online.

Of course she doesn’t mean it that way — the smile betrays that as well.

For just about half a year, Bute has been selling retro and vintage wares on eBay, the online auction site, under the name of CuteBute’s. Her items range anywhere from costume jewelry and real jewelry to lamps and kitchenware.

It wasn’t necessarily where she thought she would end up, but Bute very much seems to be imbued to the idea that it’s not the finish, it’s the journey.

“I was really scared getting into it,” Bute said from her recently purchased home in January. “I had been cutting hours at my job and finally I said that if I’m going to do this and do it right. I just have to throw my weight into it.”

Bute’s enthusiasm carried her forward to a point where she opted out of the 9 to 5 world, devoting herself fully to selling items through eBay. It was a move that started simply enough — with a vintage toy boat being sold at her parent’s garage sale.

The 29-year-old initially wasn’t going to take the plunge. Instead, her parents left it out for Bute’s friend and fellow eBay seller James Zschunke. Rather, he turned the idea around on her.

“It was at my parent’s garage sale and they set it for him, but he was like, ‘You list it,’” Bute said.

It was an opportunity Bute was waiting for, especially because 2016 was a tragic year for her family. Her brother, Derek Michael Bute, a student at Winona State University, was walking home one night when he was struck and killed by a train.

The accident left Bute and her family devastated.

“I kind of was struggling with the grief of losing him and depression and the anxiety and stress of a structured job,” Bute said. “I was looking for an opportunity to become more independent, I just didn’t realize that it would so quickly become a brand and something I would start taking it full time.”

And so a simple, ordinary vintage toy boat was listed online. It was purchased by somebody who found it more than ordinary — for the price of $375.

The smile returns as she talks about it: “That was probably one of my higher profit items.”

It was enough of a push for Bute to start taking it further. She started thinking about branding and marketing — two things she has backgrounds in, including sales. It seemed to be a natural fit for her.

She began going to more rummage sales, estate sales and auctions, taking the items she found and posting them. It was transformative, but something that still required a job to help things keep going forward.

Things didn’t stay that way long, however. As her sales starting creeping up, she began making more time for her endeavor.

After the boat, she started looking at other things she had that might sell.

The sales kept coming until one month she cleared just under $2,000. It was the final push.

“That was enough to make me feel confident,” Bute said.

She established her sales on eBay, and she was able to buy the home — outright. The home is fixer-upper, but it cut costs that were being paid in rent.

It was also a move that made her pragmatic about her situation. She realized that doing this would require a full-time effort to succeed.

“I approach it like a business,” she said. “I’m disciplined in the way that I sell it because it’s my income now so if I fail, I am poor.”

The treasure hunt

As Bute jokingly talks about selling garbage online, her words are a betrayal of that. As she discusses the pieces she sells, she lovingly describes them with a child’s excitement. It’s clear she has a reverence for the items she finds, sells and sometimes uses for herself.

“It’s treasure,” she said. “Some people just think it’s trash, but [it] was loved once upon a time; it has a story. I get to be the next step in the piece’s story and then it goes on to other people who collect.”

Most of the items come from rummage sales, estate sales or auctions with some pieces being purchased online and then resold for tidy sums. Per piece, she makes between $10 and $30 for most of the items with rare pieces fetching more.

It may seem like small returns, but Bute is constantly listing pieces and changing up items based on themes each day with things like Throwback Thursday.

But one of the highlights of what she does is still the hunt.

“It’s the thrill of the hunt,” Bute admits. “Your heart beats really quick when you see something and it just gives you that, ‘That’s really cool.’”

But Bute isn’t a poker player when she invades a sale. While she’s not going to go out of her way to betray how much she likes something, she’s not going to completely stifle the joy she feels when she finds a really nice piece.

She goes in and sets her price, though. She will bid but stands firm on that set price. If the bidding goes over that, Bute withdraws. It all comes down to a balancing act that will ultimately make her money.

“I’m not going to buy something for $1 that I’m only going to sell for two,” she said. “I would like to buy something for a dollar that I would sell for $10. I’m looking at that profit margin so I don’t want to throw a whole bunch of money into something that I can’t make a little bit of profit off of, but I also want to be fair to the person that is passing it on.”

But as much as she wants the sale, she wants the story. It’s that historical perspective that adds that nice edge to what she is doing.

“I love having conversations with people,” Bute said. “Can you tell me about this? What’s the story behind it, what do you know about it and getting to expand that knowledge.”

While searching for items, Bute is on the hunt for things that are valuable — an obvious point to the process. But she’s also looking for things that have a name brand — items that were once popular that people will recognize: names like Juliana.

Just a typical day

Bute’s day begins like any other’s. In her words, “I tend to ease my way into the day.” This includes a relaxed coffee.

Then it’s to the office just a few steps away. She begins researching items she has in her home and follows that up with taking pictures of items going up for sale, making a daily trip to the Post Office to ship items that have been purchased, followed by a couple more business stops before returning home.

“I’ll usually pop into the thrift stores nearby and when I get home I’ll finish out my day by finishing those listings and getting those active then following that up with any marketing I want to do,” Bute said.

In the marketing spectrum, Bute makes use of several social media mediums including Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter.

“What’s really fun about my marketing is that it’s very visual,” she said. “It’s all photos and it’s all fun, cool things or stuff I think is fun and cool.”

For product sourcing, Bute turns to the weekends, making trips to Rochester or hitting Saturday auctions.

This time of year doesn’t give her a lot of sourcing opportunities, however, so she works primarily from her home.

“In the winter it’s kind of slow,” Bute said. “There’s not a lot of sales going on. It’s a great time to get a lot of my listings active so when I’m out doing my sourcing in the summer I have money set aside in the bank for that.”