My Experience Selling Online- Vinted Vs Depop

*This is a collaborative post on Vinted vs Depop selling, but all thoughts are my own

Over the years I’ve sold plenty of items online and clothes is a big part of that. If you’ve got loads of clothes to sell and you’re wondering about Vinted vs Depop then read on!

I’m a clothes hoarder and there’s no point denying it. I love spending money on clothes, and wearing things I love makes me very happy. But because I’ve changed size so many times over the past decade I have a lot of clothes that don’t fit me. I had a massive cull when I moved out of my old flat into my parents. But I still moved into our current home with a lot of clothes. And by that I need a few boxes in the loft, about 4 black bin bags under the bed and a few boxes in the wardrobe. It is excessive.

I’ve finally accepted that some things will never fit me, and some things just aren’t my tastes anymore and it’s time for someone else to enjoy them. I first started using eBay, then I moved to Depop a year or two ago, and more recently I’ve moved to Vinted which is now my app of choice.

What are Depop and Vinted?

Vinted and Depop are both popular reselling apps, with millions of users around the world. Both are predominantly focused on clothes, shoes and accessories such as pin badges, but there are some other categories such as Vinted will let you sell homeware and books. They’re great sites to buy second hand clothing that are both brand new, or used and ensure items live on and are reused. Plus you can generally grab yourself a bargain or hunt for items that are no longer sold.

Just looking at their apps, homepages and marketing the audience for Vinted vs Depop are quite different. Depop seems to be skewed towards younger, trendier shoppers with cool or unique looks used. Whereas Vinted seems to be targeted towards the average person and you may find a slightly older audience. I wouldn’t consider any of my clothing to be particularly cool or edgy and this may be why I’ve had more success selling on Vinted.

Vinted vs Depop – Listing items

The process of listing items on both apps is quite similar. You add images, create a top line, a description and you fill in some boxes such as size, brand and price. I found uploading items to Vinted slightly quicker, but without a real difference.

One thing I did find when listing items is if you upload too many items in one go with Vinted they may delete the listings as they see it as commercial selling. I added about 35 items in a day (with about 60ish on my profile already) and they were all deleted for this reason and I was told if it continued my account may be banned. I’ve been adding these items back a few each day and have been fine since.

I don’t know if Depop do something similar where there’s only an appropriate amount of items you can list in a day before it is flagged. But it’s something worth noting anyway. Just spread out your listings. And if you’re like me be prepared that selling may take a little time.

There’s even an option on Vinted where you can mark that you’re open to swap items. I think this is a great option especially for people like uni students who may want new outfits but not want to spend money.

From listing an item to selling it

Now I don’t know if there are just a lot more people active on Vinted but within a day or so of adding my first batch of items I had sold quite a few pieces. And they were things that had been on Depop for months at the same prices with the same descriptions. So for me that’s one massive plus.

But when thinking about Vinted vs depop, something that bugged me about the later was that you’d see someone had liked your item, or even had it in their basket but you couldn’t see who they were or reach out to them. On most items I’m happy to offer a slightly lower price for a sale, or offer bundle deals. But on Depop this wasn’t something I could do.

But with Vinted you can see when someone favourites and item and you can send them an offer, or even message them directly. I’ve made so many extra sales by sending offers just a touch cheaper than listed. And selling items is the ultimate end goal.

Both Vinted and Depop seem to favour newer and fresher items. On Depop you can bump your item, or just remain social by liking items and interacting. Depop itself is quite a social app. Whereas with Vinted you can pay a small fee to promote either individual items or your whole wardrobe. This will push your items in front of more people which should result in higher sales.

Vinted vs Depop – Postage

Once an item is sold you get a notification with the next steps for postage. It’s up to you to choose the best bespoke ecommerce packaging and ship it out to the buyer.

With Vinted you can select all of the posting methods that you allow from Inpost lockers and Evri to Yodel, DPD and Royal Mail. So if there’s a particular method that is harder for you to get to you can remove it as an option. Or if you don’t have a printer you can choose just DPD and Yodel who print labels for you.

With Vinted unless Royal Mail is chosen you are automatically sent the postage label from Vinted. So for most methods you don’t have to pay for postage up front before your sale money clears. I have turned Royal Mail off for this reason as I don’t want to pay for postage when I’ve not had the payment for it yet.

With Depop while they do send you the postage labels you get the sale money, and then you get charged for the postage. Whereas with Vinted they handle shipping costs and you just get the product money.

Fees and getting paid

Fees are no fun when you’re selling items, but fees are how most marketplaces make their money. Depop charge a flat 10% fee on anything you earn. For example if you sell an item for £10 you’ll get £9. Plus you usually have to pay PayPal fees on top of that.

But something I love about Vinted is that sellers do not pay fees on their sales. So for that same £10 item you’ll get the whole £10. Vined make their money through charging ‘buyers protection’ to people buying the items, and likely through postage deals. A few pence or a quid here and there may not sound like much but it all adds up. Especially if you have loads of items to sell like I do.

With Depop you get the money as soon as you make a sale and then are charged for the postage. But with Vinted it goes into a wallet and you can withdraw it when you want. I like this method as getting the old £3/4 regularly it just goes into my account and gets spent. But putting it into a wallet to grow before withdrawing means it makes more of a difference to me.

When you’re thinking of Vinted vs Depop, the only negative is that as a seller you only get the money once the item has arrived with the buyer. As they send the postage, tracking is all done through the app. Then a buyer has 2 days from an item being delivered to advise of any issues. If nothing is reported then the payment is automatically released.

Vinted vs Depop – If you’re going away

If you’re going away Vinted has a handy ‘vacation mode’ that you can switch on. Doing this will hide your items until you are back. This is great if you’re not around to post out items. But with Depop there’s no such option. You either have to mark your item as sold and do it for every item. Then when you’re back mark as not sold. Or you can put a note in your bio that you’ll ship when you’re back, but I’m sure plenty of people don’t read bios.

Final thoughts

Overall I find Vinted a much easier app to use and I’ve had far more success with sales, especially lower value items. And that’s my app of choice when I want to sell any clothing/ shoes/ accessories/ beauty etc.

What do you think about Vinted vs Depop? Have you sold via either site?

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