W hen a mystery package encased inside a Pampers wrapper arrived on Sophie’s doorstep, she wondered if it was someone’s idea of a joke. Or, depending on what was inside, if she’d run afoul of her worst enemy. No, she quickly discovered: it was actually the second-hand T-shirt she’d bought off Vinted .
Just, for some reason, wrapped as confusingly as possible. Think of Vinted as a modernised, mobile app version of eBay , where you can barter with strangers over pre-owned clothes and accessories . Sounds easy, right? If only it were that straightforward.
Everyone who’s used the app will have at least one bizarre tale, like the buyer who received second-hand jewellery inside a Fruit Shoot bottle, or another whose parcel was delayed as the seller was too “distraught” over Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury’s breakup to mail it on time. Some have even encountered dirty socks for sale for £5 a pop. I began using Vinted in 2022, when I learnt that the company – unlike its biggest competitor Depop – doesn’t take a cut of my sales.
Since switching to Vinted, I’ve made more than £1,000 selling my pre-owned clothes and, generally, I’ve had an extremely positive experience. The site is much easier to use than Depop or eBay, since it generates a digital packing label and automatically calculates the price of postage before charging it to the buyer. In recent months, though, I’ve noticed that Vinted users have developed a slight decorum problem – social boundari.
