Vinted Got to Checkmate in the Vintage Reselling Game

It’s the first second-hand marketplace to advertise on Italian TV — here’s why this marketing choice affects you too.

On the first day of January, my mom sent me a couple of links on WhatsApp. They were her Fendi findings on Vinted. I would usually reply with a generic “nice!” and go along with my life, but I was surprised that the links came from Vinted.

For those of you who are not familiar with the name, Vinted is a second-hand marketplace start-up based in Lithuania. It’s now active in twelve European states and in the United States. To my knowledge as a vintage hunter, Vinted was not available in Italy. So, I replied to my mom that Vinted was great, but you could not buy from Italy.

She texted me: “They make ads on TV.”

How Vinted entered the Italian market

Two days ago, I grabbed a takeaway coffee at a cafeteria. The TV was on, and the Vinted ad was playing.

The ad is very simple and it lasts 20 seconds. The company decided that they would appeal mostly to women — two young girls with crowded wardrobes show people how easily the app works. They repeat twice that Vinted is different from other selling platforms, that usually charge the seller. They also state a basic rule: “If you don’t wear it, sell it.”

The bartender served me my coffee by saying he downloaded the app and he thought it was amazing; he’d already sold two jackets to some French buyers. Then, the owner of the bar got into the conversation; he said he had found a luxury coat in perfect conditions for around 40 bucks.

Once I got home, I zapped on the TV channels, waiting for the spots to come. The Vinted ad was always there as an aggressive marketing campaign.

The Vinted app entered the Italian app store on January 7 this year, and it’s now the most downloaded app in Italy.

Most vintage beauties were made in Italy

Why should you pay attention to the entrance that Vinted did in the Italian market? The answer is: “Made in Italy.”

Italy is an incredible place for second-hand. In the new Millenium, luxury brands relocated their manufacturing facilities to Southeastern Asia, North Africa, or Eastern Europe. Before, clothes were almost solely made in Italy.

Vivienne Westwood’s corsets — which usually retail for over $1000 — were crafted at a walking distance from my grandparent’s house. “Itierre” is a name you will find on any luxury label that comes from the 90s. Either it’s a Celine or a Versace. “Fuzzi” was the manufacturer of Jean-Paul Gaultier of all those rare dresses that the Kardashians-Jenners are showing off on Instagram.

In the years that luxury items were manufactured here, Italian people often grabbed them for low prices, mostly because they had some minor marks and sometimes as a currency for their own work. For instance, my grandma was a tailor. Some of her clients were stores or big companies, and they often paid her by letting her choose an item they were selling or manufacturing. This is how I inherited my first luxury bag ever: a Louis Vuitton monogrammed Noé.

Many of these vintage luxury items are still stored somewhere in here, either in dead stocks or as a private owning, and they soon surface online.

The way from thrift stores to Vinted

Second-hand marketplaces have been the true winners of 2020. In fact, the reselling industry grew up from $7 billion in 2020, and it’s expected to reach $23 billion in 2023, slowly eating up luxury first-hand sales. Sustainable brands are already making collaborations with the most renowned platforms.

In 2020, Rejina Pyo resold some of her own statement pieces. ByFar reworked some used bags to make special editions of its trendy croc-effected baguettes — both initiatives took place on the Vestiaire Collective platform.

As stated in the interviews they released to the press, Vinted opened to a market that seemed prosperous. According to their surveys, one-third of the Italian population bought second-hand clothes in 2020. I have been using second-hand marketplaces for two years now, on Depop, eBay, Vinted, Vestiaire Collective, Vintag, Videdressing. All those apps are on my phone. Obviously, Italian people have been selling second-hand clothes online long before Vinted entered the place. Yet, anyone I know that sells on Depop or Vestiaire Collective is either a professional seller or someone who is well acquainted with buying second-hand.

Till now, most second-hand items in Italy first landed physical thrift stores. From there, they were purchased and resold for high prices. Occasionally, some of them hit eBay.

A company that enters the Italian market by making sure that people know about its existence is opening Pandora’s box. In the past weeks, most people I know registered on Vinted, talking about thrifting or buying second-hand. Most of them are still unaware of the existence of other platforms. In Italy, we are on mild lockdowns, so I can easily predict that physical thrift stores won’t be the place to make bargains anymore.

All those vintage items will now enter a specific online second-hand market: Vinted.

Pandora

Whenever people massively use a marketplace, most of them have no particular knowledge on which trends are selling. It means that they do not know which value they should give to their second-hand items.

As a result, you get two opposite tendencies:

• “Normal items” are overpriced, such as second-hand Zara.
• “Trendy vintage items” are underpriced.

The second tendency should draw your attention. You may find users who owned a Dior’s Saddlebag from the early 2000s. The purse does not appear to be in perfect condition, so they figure out that they can’t probably make more than 300$ out of it. They ignore that Galliano’s iconic bag usually goes on the online market for at least 3 times more: there’s your steal.

Either if you are a fashionista or simply into vintage clothing, it would be foolish of you to ignore what’s happening in the Italian second-hand market because a lot of iconic vintage pieces will probably be going online on Vinted in the next few months.

Conclusion: be the star of a Ryan Murphy’s TV show

Vinted is the only second-hand online marketplace that runs spots on Italian television, the only one that ever did. Thus, it got to the attention of a lot of people, as most of them are unaware of the existence of other marketplaces. They are also unable to go to thrift stores, due to emergency legislation. Vinted is pretty appealing to all of them. Finally, since most of the 80s and 90s luxury brands made their clothes in here, Italy is a country full of vintage steals and they will probably hit the Vinted market in the next few months.

Right now, the Italian market is only accessible from Europe. Yet, I doubt that would be the case for a long time.

So, if Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story left you craving for Gianni Versace’s baroque shirts, the next months are the right time to go through the Vinted site and app. Even if the shipment is not available through the app, you may still find people who are willing to use Paypal and grab the bargain you were waiting for.

All is fair in war and vintage buying.