Most of us have heard that selling online is a great way to clear out the house, but the fees can eat the profit on small items. That is exactly why veteran reseller Nikki of the Nikki Buys channel is excited about Vinted. She has been reselling part time for almost 20 years and is coming up on her 18-year anniversary, and after three weeks on Vinted she says it has changed how she thinks about $10 items.
Her verdict is mixed, and that is what makes it worth a look. Some things have been better than she expected, and some more annoying.
Who Is Talking
Nikki is not a beginner. She keeps roughly 1,600 items listed across Poshmark, eBay, ThredUp and The RealReal, and she live sells on Whatnot, which she started in 2022. Vinted is the first new platform she has added in almost four years. That is why her opinion carries weight: she is coming to it, as she puts it, with veteran reseller eyes.
Offers, Offers and More Offers
She expected Poshmark to be offer heavy. Vinted beats it, she says, by about 20 times. About 95 percent of her sales come from offers, and only about 5 percent are people buying outright. A $15 item may draw an offer of $8 or $9, and then she and the buyer go back and forth until they meet at a price she will accept. The lesson is to price items with room for offers.
The day she recorded, she had her first big bundle order, where one buyer bundled five items and paid without negotiating. That, she said, was an amazing experience, since it has never happened before.
She also reminds viewers that Vinted is not actually new. It has been in Europe since around 2009, and commenters from overseas told her that pricing for offers has always been the culture there, much like Poshmark.
What Sells, and What Does Not
The big surprise for her was which items sell. Higher priced items are slow. She has about three listings of $100 or more that are getting favorites and views but have not sold. The most expensive item she has sold is a new-with-tags backpack that retailed for $90 and sold for $50 in under an hour. She is listing at least one item over $50 every day to test it, and so far none besides the backpack has sold.
What sells daily is the $10 to $20 range. That bundle she shipped had items priced from $8 up to $20.
The No Seller Fee Advantage
This is where she says Vinted is a game changer. With no seller fees, she can profit on items she would never bother with elsewhere. Take a beauty or skin care item that retails for $15. On eBay or Poshmark, after roughly 20 percent in fees plus the time of making a polished listing, she would not touch it. On Vinted, she sets the item on her desk, takes about six photos without even opening the box, says it is new in box and writes a short description. That takes about a minute, and she is happy to get $8 or $10.
She says she is not above a $10 or $20 flip. Her usual goal is at least a $30 net profit on an item, but if something is already sitting on her shelves collecting dust, she would rather list it and make ten dollars. Everything she has listed on Vinted is stuff from around her house that is not listed anywhere else. Daily $10 sales add up, and she plans a one-month report on what she made. Her Vinted money is her fun money, she says, going toward things like jiu-jitsu and hair extensions.
What You Can Do With This
You do not need to be a professional to use her lessons. If you are a decluttering parent or grandparent with things that are too small to bother with, here is how to think about it:
- Price with room for offers. Assume the buyer will counter, and decide your floor price before you list.
- Start with items in the $10 to $20 range. Those move fastest according to her experience.
- Look around the house for new or nearly new items such as toiletries, gift sets and unopened beauty items. Fees matter less on small sales.
- Keep photos simple and clear. For small items, a few good pictures on a clean desk may be enough.
- Bundle. Offering buyers a discount for several items can turn five small sales into one shipping trip.
- Be patient with expensive pieces, and consider testing them on other sites too, since her pricier listings sat.
Her takeaways are a good reminder that “worth selling” is relative. When the fee is zero, a ten dollar item is worth a few minutes. Just remember that a sale is only a win if you account for your time and the shipping supplies, and that results can vary from seller to seller.
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