The consumerism creep of secondhand shopping by Susan Riley

One of my most-worn items is an indigo denim jumpsuit from Whistles. My punchy tomato-red Sambas are another. Both bargain finds from Vinted and snapped up for £35 and £18 respectively, facts which I inform people very smugly each time I’m complimented on them.

The thrill of the ‘find’ is why secondhand shopping is booming, with apps and sites replacing the Boxing Day sales of yesteryear, making every day a discount day and our mobile phones one giant sales rack. And appetite is growing.

A Think Stylist survey found three-quarters of women now shop on pre-loved platforms, with 76% of them using Vinted, 51% eBay, 13% Facebook Marketplace and 10% Depop.

It comes as zero surprise that Vinted is the top shopped. My friends now reference it more than they do high street retailers, and my local InPost locker has become quite the place to hang out. Vinted is estimated to have between 16 and 18 million users in the UK, and I might just know a notable chunk of them.

The reasons UK women use it will massively resonate. Number one is to declutter and get rid of unwanted items. Number two is sustainability. And number three is to earn money (half of Vinted users cite this).

Our quest to declutter peaked post-Covid, when we all felt overburdened with ‘stuff’ and wanted to simplify our lives and let go of things that didn’t serve us. That’s when Vinted – launched way back in 2008 by Milda Mitkutė and Justas Janauskas – got supercharged, facilitating the mass offloading of unworn wardrobes everywhere, before expanding its empire throughout Europe (last year it tripled its profits to £80 million).

With a mission to make secondhand everyone’s first choice, the seamless circular shopathon facilitated by Vinted is without a doubt more sustainable than buying new. Extending the life of items and utilising what we already have is vital work, meeting the needs of consumers desperate to shop more consciously and economically. Let’s remember, though (and that’s before we even get into the carbon emissions produced from the delivery infrastructure), that a circular economy doesn’t delete landfill – it merely delays it. It’s fast fashion garment rotation. The equivalent of reassuring ourselves that our recycling bins put a dent in the world’s plastic pollution.

As for earning a little return on the side, yes please. My Vinted account tells me I have sold 86 items since joining two years ago, earning myself £891.69. But I am no richer for it. On top of buying a shedload of parcel wrap and packing paper, I have also bought 36 items on Vinted in the same period – to save money on clothes, yes (38% of women use Vinted to cut costs), but also because buying in-app feels gamified. Like I’m spending Monopoly money I never had in the first place. Do not pass go, do not collect £200.

Yes, I know I could shift it to my savings and do something worthy but, honestly, I’m not the only one; of those earning money selling on Vinted, half use it to buy other items on Vinted and 22% use it to purchase brand spanking new clothing from other retailers. Transactions fuelling transactions fuelling transactions.

And this is where everyone’s intentions all get a bit muddled: a platform created to savour secondhand simply makes it easier to shop full stop. To get a dopamine rush from a bargain while sitting on your sofa. To wear an item once and then permissively get rid. To buy more because it costs less. To shrug when you forget to return something and sell it on, labels intact. Only 35% of women buy clothes on Vinted because they actually need the item.

And then there’s the extra time spent looking at clothes and thinking about clothes. More than half (53%) of women agree that browsing Vinted is addictive, with 42% using the app at least three times a week and 15% browsing it daily. Translate those behaviours into IRL shopping trips and think how out of sync with sustainability that is. Now consider how the scroll takes its toll.

Pre-loved purchases are incredible, and my tomato-red Sambas can attest to that. But if we really want apps like Vinted to represent careful consumerism, we’re all going to have to start giving second thoughts to secondhand.

By Susan Riley, Head of Think Stylist