Quick, cheap and addictive: Vinted gives buyers and sellers access to a huge pool of clothing and customers. Photograph: Vinted View image in fullscreen Quick, cheap and addictive: Vinted gives buyers and sellers access to a huge pool of clothing and customers. Photograph: Vinted Australian fashion Arrival of Vinted a ‘gamechanger’ for shopping secondhand in Australia With low prices and free listings, Australians have quickly embraced the resale app – but some users are wary of long-distance shipping
Prefer the Guardian on Google When I first moved to the UK, I fell hard and fast for Vinted, the Lithuanian-born secondhand fashion app with a lo-fi user experience and pleasingly uncool branding. It’s cheap, quick and addictive : behind its innocuous teal logo is an algorithm uncannily attuned to your desires, surfacing one compelling listing after another.
Vinted launched in Australia on 1 July, giving secondhand buyers and sellers access to a far larger pool of clothing and customers than the domestic resale market can offer. It quickly became one of the country’s most downloaded apps, according to Australia’s iTunes charts.
Read more It’s been “a really encouraging start,” Guen de Mello, the platform’s communications manager, tells Guardian Australia. “We’ve been very pleased with how members have taken to Vinted here, and the early response says a lot about the appetite for secondhand in the market.”
A study undertaken in June by Vinted in partnership with Pureprofile showed that 91% of Australians have bought or sold secondhand, and more than half (52%) of sellers listed more items in the past year than they had the year before. The Australian “recommerce” market continues to grow, with Research and Markets estimating it will reach US$6.75bn (A$9.56bn) by 2029 .
View image in fullscreen SJ Keats has been active on the Vinted platform since it launched in July. SJ Keats, a longtime buyer and seller on platforms including Depop, eBay and Whatnot, says Vinted’s arrival is “a genuine gamechanger”. In the month since it landed, she’s been active on the app, buying a pair of boots, flared jeans, and pieces for her kids. Her best find? A handbag that she originally bought for $100 and wanted to replace. “I recently found two in different colours on Vinted for just $10 each,” says Keats, who is based in Perth.
It’s also attractively cheap. Listing is free on the platform, so sellers keep all their earnings. In contrast with the more professionalised storefronts on Depop, most sellers seem to be looking to “make a quick bit of cash”, says Keats, “which keeps prices refreshingly low”. Vinted’s first three listings in Australia were a black cotton dress ($10), a pair of black jeans ($30) and a high-waisted pair of blue jeans ($35).
Competitors are taking notice. On 22 July, Depop removed its selling fees for Australians, following eBay – which bought the platform in February – which did the same in May.
Melbourne-based Lily Johnston, a postgraduate fashion business student, has made four purchases since Vinted launched in Australia – one of them from me. For her, the app has become an unlikely forecasting tool, allowing her to track trends emerging in the UK and Europe and bet on which ones will eventually make their way to Australia.
View image in fullscreen Lily Johnston wearing pieces she bought on Vinted and other secondhand shopping platforms. But some have questioned the sustainability credentials of opening the marketplace to Au…