How to sell on Vinted, properly

There is a particular kind of disappointment that comes from putting four pieces on Vinted, watching them sit untouched for two months, then quietly deleting the app. It is one of the reasons people end up with seventy unworn items in their wardrobe instead of selling them.

The frustrating part is that it is mostly fixable. The listings that move are not better-looking clothes. They are clearer listings of identical clothes. The difference is in three places — title, price, photos — and getting all three right takes about five minutes per item once you know what you are doing.

What is Vinted actually doing under the hood?

Vinted's search and recommendation systems are doing two things at once. One is matching exact-phrase searches: people looking for Cos linen shirt size M. The other is browsing-style discovery: people who like one kind of thing being shown more of that thing.

A good listing wins both. The title needs to contain the things people search for. The photos need to look like the listings the algorithm already pushes to the front of feeds. The price needs to be inside the band where buyers are actually clicking. Get all three approximately right and an item sells in days. Get one of them wrong and it can sit for a year.

How should you title a Vinted listing?

The single most common Vinted mistake is a vague title. Black jumper is not a title. Cos Merino Wool Crew Neck Jumper · Black · Size M is a title.

The shape that works:

Brand · Item description · Notable detail · Size

Examples that move:

• Acne Studios cigarette trousers · charcoal · pleated front · 36
• Sandro cotton shirt · ivory · oversized fit · S
• Veja Esplar leather trainers · white & navy · EU 38

Things to avoid:

• Generic adjectives nobody searches for (beautiful, gorgeous, stunning)
• Emoji in titles (they reduce search match probability)
• Listing the size only at the end without a clear separator
• Capital letters for every word (looks like spam)

If you do not know the exact brand or material, the listing should still contain the material and the silhouette. Wool blend coat · oatmeal · midi length · M is better than long beige coat.

How should you price clothes on Vinted?

The instinct most sellers have is to price near what they paid. The instinct that actually sells is to price near what comparable items sold for in the last sixty days. Those numbers are usually a third of retail, sometimes less.

The five-minute pricing routine:

1. Search Vinted for your exact brand and item type.
2. Filter to Sold listings (the filter exists on the web; on the app you can scroll the listings showing Sold badges).
3. Look at the median sold price, not the highest. The highest is a luckily-priced outlier or an aspirational seller still waiting.
4. List ten to fifteen percent above the median. Vinted buyers expect to negotiate, and a small headroom is what gives you space to accept the first reasonable offer.

For items under €30, do not negotiate hard. The friction of haggling is what kills small sales. For items over €80, expect two or three offers before one lands. That is normal.

How many photos does a Vinted listing need?

Vinted listings with three to five photos tend to sell faster than listings with one. The reason is not that more photos are more compelling — it is that buyers are scanning quickly and a single photo looks like a listing the seller cannot be bothered with.

The three photos that should always exist:

One: the full piece, flat, on a clean surface. Bed linen, a wooden floor, or a wall hook are all fine. The piece should fill at least seventy percent of the frame. Natural daylight, no flash. Iron the item first if it has any kind of structure. A wrinkled photograph reads as a wrinkled garment.

Two: a close-up of the fabric or weave. This is the photo that proves the listing is honest. A linen shirt should show the linen texture. A wool jumper should show the knit. Buyers who are about to spend €40 want to see the material before they ask.

Three: a close-up of any flaw, or of the brand label. If there is no flaw, the label photo. If there is, the flaw — with a one-line caption in the description ("small pull on left shoulder, photographed below"). Honest flaws sell. Hidden flaws come back as refund requests.

What should the description say?

The description is shorter than people expect. Three to four sentences is usually enough.

Cos Merino Wool Crew Neck Jumper in black. Size M. Worn three times, no pilling. Slightly oversized fit — I am a true M and this sits roomy on the shoulders. Smoke-free flat.

That is the shape: piece, size, condition, fit note, flat. Skip the personality. Buyers reading at speed do not want a story.

The Margot shortcut

This routine (title, photos, price, description, list) takes about five minutes per item. Multiply that by every piece you no longer wear and it turns into hours of slightly tedious work, which is why those pieces stay in your wardrobe instead.

From any piece's page, Margot writes a Vinted listing when you ask: a title, a description, hashtags and a suggested price range estimated from the brand, the category and how often you wore it. You copy it, open Vinted, add your photos and publish.

That is the part of the wardrobe loop Margot helps with.

Download Margot on the App Store. It's live and free on iOS and Android.

— Margot