‘Do you have any more shoes? I need as many as you can find for my daughters.’ I had just made my first sale on the second-hand marketplace Vinted and, already, here was a message from a new customer wanting more. Delighted, I scrambled around and managed to locate more than a dozen pairs of no-longer-wanted, muddy old shoes. ‘Don’t worry about cleaning them,’ came the reply from ‘Mariella’ when I told her the good news. ‘They’re just for the garden.’ Slightly odd, I thought, but my customer seemed harmless enough: a part-time cleaner with young children who, she told me rather quaintly, was married to a cobbler.
It was only when I had to ship the huge black bin liner of shoes that I realised I had been duped. When I printed off the delivery label with my customer’s name and address – generated by the app only after a sale goes through – I found that ‘Mariella’ was in fact a man called John. Closer inspections of his reviews from other sellers showed they were full of contradictory stories. ‘Hope the shoes help your African charity,’ read one; ‘All the best for the unshod children at school,’ read another. Oh dear. I think I had come across my first foot fetishist.
That’s just one of the weird, wacky and downright worrying experiences I’ve had since I became a ‘Vintie’ two years ago. Two decades of child-rearing meant I had a lot of clobber and, rather than driving my sister mad with bags of the stuff, I started selling it all on the Vinted app. I found it much easier to use than eBay. All you need to do is take a photo of the item you’re selling, upload it to the app with a description and name your price. Once you’ve found a buyer, you can ship it to them via any major delivery service or, for larger items, have a courier collect them from your home. Best of all – there are no fees for the seller.
Given its ease of use, it’s little wonder that Vinted’s popularity has soared. Last month, it mooted a shares sale that could boost the company’s valuation from a reported £4 billion to £7 billion – pretty good for a kitchen-table business that came about in 2008 when its Lithuanian co-founders Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas wanted to get rid of some clothes. A US expansion is also under way, allowing customers in America to sell items to the UK and 21 other European countries including France, Germany and Spain.
Two years since my first Vinted sale and it has helped me get rid of bagfuls of dinosaur T-shirts, battery-operated crying dolls, outdoor tricycles and even a gavel – all to the tune of £3,000. Most of it has gone to happy homes but not, I fear, all of it.
I’ve had people ask me for broken dolls (unconventional, but OK), unwashed tights (no), and chewed shoes (there are plenty in this house but, again, no). I knew of someone who ordered a Baby Born doll which, when it arrived, spewed mould all over the floor. Another friend told me she’d ordered a green throw which, when it arrived, was in fact blue. The seller got so annoyed by the request to return the item, she said she had ‘had to go back on tranquilisers’ to recover from the experience.
I’ve had people ask me for broken dolls, unwashed tights and chewed shoes
Some sales are smooth but some are stressful. Last week my husband was sent out in the rain to intercept a box containing some vintage gold butterfly shoes which – due to a label mix-up – I had accidentally sent to the wrong person. It was a race against time to reach the shoes before the Parcelforce man did and apply the correct shipping label. After all that, when they arrived at their correct destination, the shoes didn’t even fit the buyer who duly said she wanted to return them and blamed me for the size of her feet.
Another time I was interested in buying a dress, which a seller had reserved for me. When I realised it was the wrong size, I messaged her and apologised that I wouldn’t be able to buy it after all. Her response was bewildering: she accused me of mocking her, wasting her time and threatened to report me. ‘I should bill you for the parcel and bag,’ she sneered. ‘You must think this is funny.’ I didn’t at all.
Maturely, I fought back and reported her in turn for bullying behaviour. Like a weary teacher, Vinted saw sense and refused to take action on either report – but it still felt like being back in the school playground.
This year I haven’t uploaded much. Instead I’ve given a lot away and bartered a bit with friends. And even with the lure of cheap Christmas gifts and no shopping hordes, I’m not sure I can face Vinted this season. It’s important to say that most of my fellow Vinties are incredibly friendly and polite. But some are downright weird and it’s not worth spoiling your festive cheer over a £1 transaction, is it?
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