Once the preserve of jumble sales and charity shops, 'preloved' fashion and homewares are now leading style and shopping trends in the UK. After the rapid growth of online retail, Britain is now witnessing 'the normalisation of secondhand', according to Adam Jay, the chief executive of Vinted's main marketplace arm – a key driver of the trend in recent years.
The UK is at the forefront of an international revolution, jostling for position with France to be Vinted's biggest market, and is also one of its fastest growing markets, as the online marketplace moves beyond just selling clothes and into everything from smartphones and books to rugs.
'I see a deep and sustained change in how people buy and how people think about things that they own,' says Jay, who has been in the job since 2022. 'We're a very meaningful part, now, of UK fashion, and we're becoming a very meaningful part of the retail scene in other categories as well.'
He says in the last five to 10 years Britons have embraced secondhand buying to a far greater degree, boosting not only Vinted but eBay – the subject of a recent $55.5bn (£41bn) takeover bid – and the UK startup Depop, Facebook Marketplace as well as numerous other smaller rivals. Preloved items now make up about a tenth of global fashion sales and Jay believes there is much further to go.
Together with the cut-price marketplaces Shein and Temu, Vinted has shaken up the UK retail scene, putting pressure on established online sellers including Asos and Boohoo, the budget high street chain Primark and even retailers such as John Lewis, Currys and Argos. While Vinted's green-tinged ambition to make secondhand the first choice may seem a world away from Shein, which sells cheap stuff direct from factories based mostly in China, Jay says both are benefiting from shoppers' hunt for value as their spare cash is squeezed by rising energy and food costs.
He says Vinted, Shein and Temu are all growing for 'fundamentally the same reason', which is 'because it's cheap and easy. Our main competitor is new [products].' Vinted shoppers save an average 72% on the price of buying an equivalent new item, according to the company's impact report published this week. Almost a third of the marketplace's users say they use the savings to cover essential household expenses.
