Charity shop bargain hunter Charlotte, who runs the Pink Peach Finds YouTube channel, says the quality of secondhand fashion in charity shops has declined significantly in recent years, and she believes the resale app Vinted is behind the change.
Charlotte told Wales Online: "I was a regular charity shop shopper long before Covid. What's interesting is that I didn't notice an immediate change once the lockdowns ended. Looking back, I'd say the biggest shift has really been over the last three or four years."
She added: "I still visit charity shops most weeks but I definitely go with different expectations than I did even three or four years ago. Back then I'd expect to come across something really special most weeks. These days, that's much rarer."
How Vinted changed charity shopping
In a new video, Charlotte explains that the rise of Vinted has reshaped secondhand fashion and charity shops. She says: "The good stuff never gets donated anymore. Everyone just sells online until one name kept appearing again and again. Vinted."
Charlotte describes how the Covid pandemic and the cost of living crisis transformed Vinted into a culture-shifting phenomenon. She notes that in 2022, around 4.8 million people visited Vinted each month in the UK, rising to 11.4 million by 2024. Across Europe, the company was valued at around 8 billion by 2026, and analysts estimate the platform hosts well over 200 million items at any given time. In 2025 alone, people bought and sold £9.4bn worth of second-hand goods on the platform.
A decade earlier, many unwanted items would have ended up in charity shops, but the ease of use of the Vinted app means people can now make money from clothes, footwear, and accessories with a few taps. "Suddenly, that bag of clothing in the spare room wasn't clutter anymore," Charlotte says. "It was money. And money you could very easily unlock from your sofa in just a few minutes."
Rails dominated by fast fashion
Over recent years, Charlotte has explored hundreds of charity shops throughout the UK and has noticed a marked shift. She says: "Somewhere along the way, something has started to feel very different. The shops aren't empty. Far from it. Most are packed with items and stuff, but the quality of those products seems to be changing."
She adds: "Increasingly, rails are dominated by ultra-fast fashion and plastic tat. Meanwhile, the brands that you dream of finding about in a charity shop, Ralph Lauren, Barbour, quality vintage pieces, are much harder to find."
Charlotte says the cost of living crisis also played a role: "For me, that's because Vinted really came into its own at around the same time the cost of living crisis started to bite. I think the combination of those two things has had the biggest impact."
