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In other news, the new store in our town is opening. $1500 a month for an 8’x10′ booth and 18% of sales. I’m so curious how that will work out.
So I’ve sold and bought a few items on Vinted now. Shipping is running .99-2.99 at the moment. I did make two dumb cheap purchases without enough information or just not noticing the description. One of those sellers also did not describe a defect on a black item that couldn’t be seen in photos. I just ate it. It’s definitely buyer beware. However, I also got some flea market priced good deals. It’s definitely a time suck but attractive because our prices where I live in CA are high. I think a lot of resellers have hopped on and are scooping up the good deals and then putting things up high now. Most of the items I find that I like are too expensive to flip. Currently I’m looking for small paintings, hand made signed bowls, and a couple of other things.
I had some leftover household yard sale clothing I listed yesterday and two items sold immediately – my old REI brand clothing, so that was awesome. That would never happen on Ebay. My son’s Notre Dame sweatshirt went to England for .99 shipping! Someone on Youtube said that if you list clothing then some people will check out your other listings and bundling is big. I haven’t had that just yet. The lightning fast speed of listing is really compelling but my iphone has a lot of trouble with close ups on their site. After the free shipping is over, I doubt I will be using this site much. In the meantime, it’s a great dumping ground, even if only a quarter of my listings are selling. I got through a whole Ikea bag of clothing yesterday!
Thrifting is just not fruitful so I am making some headway in my remaining piles. I’m a little bummed to find flaws in some of the stuff I bought along the way… There is a LOT left but Vinted is helping me process more of it. A good deal of that lot I will donate if it doesn’t sell I think. I’m trying to find all of the one off items and incomplete sets to throw on there. I should really put some larger items on there.
Ebay had a little pick up but nothing like what I would normally be having this time of year. Poshmark got really quiet and I think may be taking a pretty big hit from Vinted as they share younger buyers.
Someone posted the other day in a group “I’ve just had enough of Ebay’s s#$t.” and I think a lot of us are feeling that way. I still love selling Ebay and I’m grateful for the sales I get but I’m feeling discouraged about not being in their focus categories, the whole live catch up distraction, and the changes they have clearly made to the algo this year. It’s frustrating and really hurt my sales while I’m just doing the same things, taking lower prices, and paying higher fees. This time of year usually things are really picking up for me on Ebay. :/
@mycottage there are some really talented Instagram sellers. I’m even tempted occasionally and I know their prices are high. One I like even shops in antique stores for her drops so she is getting some big prices on Insta. I feel humble about being a decent but lesser photographer, stylist, etc. I’m also not super skilled with the Insta features. It’s so simple to find a cool piece and photograph it separately to sell on Ebay. How people get a big following on there to begin with idk. My posts only get about 200-300 views.Regarding the economy, I always fear that after the after-Christmas splurges it will fall off a cliff when people get their bills and winter is here. This year I am feeling that way for sure.
I’m still grateful for the forum here. The Facebook groups are full of whiners and show offs one upping the whiners. I don’t want to pay for a private forum and I think a lot of those have the get-rich-quick guys. I’ll stay in as long as it’s still up. 🙂 I miss the SL podcast but happy for R&J in their coffee shop & rental success.
I know what you mean. I feel less confident about sales. Thank goodness 4th quarter is coming up.
I did a little AI research and it said someone estimates 60% of Ebay sellers are paying the minimum percentage and stubbornly staying on that. I wonder if Ebay is trying to squeeze and get people out of that mindset. Many sellers are moving on from Ebay supposedly instead. Some Facebook sellers speculate that Ebay Live is taking a toll on BIN sellers. Shipping costs are definitely an issue as well.
Today I listed a bunch of clothing from our house and used Nifty AI. I still need to redo the titles but it was relatively fast. I think it handles clothing better than vintage items. I promoted the clothing at 6%.
So Ebay is absolutely terrible for me right now, and I’ve been consistently adding listings. It used to be that would start a sales bump. I’m TRS, running a sale, listing, making offers. Pulling the levers and they are not working. I think it must be that I still have some old recycled stuff on there and I’m only doing 20% off the retail shipping price. Meanwhile, Poshmark really picked up this week and Mercari slowed down. Vinted is not as fruitful this week. Resellers are grabbing up things that are undervalued to flip and the things I’m liking have strong prices. My 60% offers are getting rejected. I did get 2 vintage easels for $4 though – seller listed as “frame holders”. So I guess I’m guilty as well.
I don’t like selling clothes but I think I can price it lower because I don’t care about it. I’ve actually had really good luck with the clothing I’ve put up. It’s interesting. I’m just selling some things I got for myself on clearance that didn’t work, some $1 flea market finds, and a few of my kid’s things that were hanging around. The citywide garage sale clothing sold super fast for me (Johnny Was brand) and I just sold a tote bag from that garage sale day for $100 (same brand).
The thrifts are just not good lately and I need to give up the ghost on that and spend that time listing. It’s nice to get out of the house and convenient but between the prices, the picking over and Goodwill sending things to corporate, it’s just not worth it. Someone got to the Halloween before me this week to boot. Sigh. I still have a weekly flea market that is ok. There is plenty here so today will be a big work day. I should be thankful the thrifts are not good because I am truly making progress on the piles. Plus I have 4 markets by December to unload stuff.
Sorry about Insta. I know a lot of people use it but I feel like unless you pay to promote not many people get to see your post.
I have bought about 8 items on vinted and sold 3 so far. A lot of sellers said they got a big selling boost when starting but I’m definitely not seeing that. I priced with the anticipation of making offers to the buyer later, but now I’m thinking to just price it cheaply to begin with while you have their attention. OTOH, under $10 I’m wondering if it’s even worth my time to ship fragile stuff. Right now I put some mildly damaged bad vintage buys on there, also some textiles, etc. just to get my thrifted money back. Some flea market finds I got very inexpensively. If it’s fabric, at least it’s easy to ship out. I am getting a little bit of a feel for what does better, like brass and vintage kitsch completed needlepoint works. Hopefully I’ll sell off some more things before they start charging shipping.
I don’t care for the app design and the sellers I bought from did not mention flaws. It is hard to see in the pics on the phone and easy to miss. It’s also a time suck. The platform must be getting really loaded up with stuff since it so fast to list. I think there are a lot of resellers on there now with strong prices so I have bought less recently.
Good luck @retro! I heard somewhere that live selling is actually selling a community rather than the goods. I definitely think there is something to that.
I like to keep it simple on shipping out. I always buy my labels on the selling platform. Just keeping my ear to the ground it seems like most people think Pirateship is not much cheaper in most cases.
Regarding Ebay it sure is hard to know what to do to make better sales. My preference is for shipping to be a wash after materials (mostly I recycle) and then I offer various discounts to buyers adding up to about 20% max unless it’s a stale used item. But I do get messages now and then about shipping costs and I also feel like in 2026 my items aren’t really getting seen with this level of promotion. At my couple of online store reviews the tutor was really pushing the coupon, newsletter, and making a clearance section in my store. He didn’t really push more promoting.
I saw your post 🙂
No sales on Vinted unfortunately. It’s a time suck but I’ll be looking for a few more things to source. Handmade quilts are super hard to find here but those have strong prices even on Vinted.
A youtuber I love is starting a trend for Nemadji pottery and I’m trying to pick some up inexpensively. I’d like to take some to the Fall markets. I found one I’d like to keep for myself in a rarer color and the shipping was $20 USPS ground from the East Coast on Ebay. It’s a 6″ vase. I reached out to the seller and she said her measurements are correct but she’d refund any overage but wow. Ebay really, really needs to work on the shipping cost. It has me thinking about passing on a portion of my shipping discount for 4th quarter. (Either that or upping the promo rate a bit.) I need to look at my 2 and 3 pound labels and see if I can do a flat rate on either, but I think nearby buyers would be put off.
There is a lot of content on Youtube and Facebook about Ebay sales being way down in 2026. Their numbers were ok for shareholders because I guess of inflation, the fee bump, and an uptick in trading cards and motors focus categories. But with some of the AI listing tools, live selling, and Gen Z there is a lot more stuff coming online, which will push vintage prices down. They really need to think about making some changes soon.
Re the social tool I agree. I wanted to just select a bunch of related listings and pin them all to one Pinterest board. It really is useless as is and I have to share each listing with several clicks. I get about 10% of my clicks from external – Google or Pinterest so it’s worth doing.
I just bought an original watercolor painting on Vinted for $8 today. You have to look closely which is a little trickier on the phone. It’s very Wild West though you can tell some people are experienced resellers.
I listed about 10 items today and it was lightening fast. No sales yet. I have a bunch of items favorited so I can see what’s moving. It seems like the completed needle works I mentioned, kitsch, plus certain home decor items are popular. It’s a bit hard to know how low to price because I’m expecting people to negotiate and they can ask for 40% off. I’m putting in one offs, things with small flaws, things my daughter commented on, and things I got super cheap or regret getting. I have a pro iphone and had to turn off a setting so it would do close ups inside the Vinted app.
I’m definitely going to continue to cross post on Ebay because the prices are good when I do get sales. I may or may not try bumping promoted on certain items to 6% or so to see if it helps if I have the margins. Someone said they went to 9% and sales improved.
Good luck with Insta.
Unfortunately I used my business name before I knew they didn’t want “commercial resellers”. Retrodecorandmore. I also just saw a list of what they don’t allow after I listed my first few items and used bedding is on there. I chose vintage patterned pillowcases first because I get them for $1 at the flea market. There is a list of restricted items and some make sense but others not so much – like no party supplies. People say don’t list a lot of new items. I also heard it’s good to list at times of day when people are likely to be on – evenings and weekends.
My daughter (20 yo) says she is seeing a ton of online advertising for Vinted. From what I gather, completed needlepoint and crewel is doing very well. I’ll throw a few more listings on each day while the free shipping lasts.
Labor day weekend the retailers have great sales so I do remember that it is a tough holiday. However, I only have two Ebay sales and I ran a 10% coupon, plus a 5% sale, made offers and listed. A lot of long timers on Ebay Facebook groups are saying they sales are way down in 2026. Some comments vary on the month of change. For me it felt like visibility was poorer since January and I saw that in my promoted clicks traffic numbers.
Ebay management really has blown it. They made a big deal about AI to the public and then a bunch of executives unloaded their stock. Meanwhile they just have let all this buyer growth slip through their fingers and created ill will with sellers. I’m so glad I started cross posting last year. Unfortunately Nifty doesn’t have Vinted yet and Vinted doesn’t want software posted items.
Let me know how it goes with Insta. It’s hard to see that some people are just super good on that platform while I am just throwing things against the wall and taking quick and dirty photos. It reminds me of the reason I never went over to Etsy. I just feel like when I finally make myself list I just want to get it up quickly. The photo quality just isn’t good or artsy enough.
So I did list and buy a few items on Vinted. I will list a few more this afternoon. It was refreshing to see people viewing my listing and adding it to their favorites. It was lightening fast to list compared to Ebay and even faster than Mercari. Vinted feels so ALIVE compared to Ebay.
I need to think about what I have on hand that would be really helped by free shipping – low dollar, lightweight items and relatively larger items maybe under a pound. Vinted also showed me what items I had liked that ended up selling. Some items are moving SUPER quickly. It gives me a little window into what the young people are interested in and willing to pay for. The algorithm seems to be pretty good at deciding what new items to place on your home page. I wish I could cross post there but by the time they are added by Nifty, the free shipping offer is probably going to be gone. There are a lot of obvious resellers on there.
I read that Ebay should do well with item specifics once agentic shopping arrives. Until then, they might really continue to suffer a thousand cuts from these easy to use app based selling sites, plus Whatnot, Instagram and other live selling platforms.
I was looking at comps and noticed that the coupon price gets a separate line in search results which is pretty attention grabbing. So I haven’t run a coupon in a while and decided to do it. Just extra 5% off sale. Then started my weekly sale. I also make offers of %5 so I just took the coupon % off the sale discount. I also listed 4 items yesterday and Ebay woke up – none of the new items sold or any in that category. Seems like running promotions plus listing brand new (not recycled) items is what it takes to get Ebay moving these days.
I’m following a seller who has items selling in hours on Vinted. This is home decor stuff. She said she has to field a LOT of lowballers but just waits until a buyer comes along who will pay a pretty fair price. Unfortunately Nifty doesn’t have vinted yet, but I have some old stuff I’d love to unload which I always try to do on Mercari.
Also young people invading estate sales is on national news. They mentioned the new term old lady core.
@Retro congrats on the great sales, ACT scores, car purchase and getting kids to work the biz.
It’s interesting that you like the AI lister on Nifty so much. Maybe it’s because I’m selling fewer clothes but I always have to rework the titles. I do like the keyword function and I have copied someone’s prompts to control the description. I use it sometimes for brand new items when I have stock photos. It also got some of my measurements wrong when I used a ruler in photos so I might steal the white board idea – that’s a great idea.
Ebay seems to be doing ok working the focus categories and dialing up the advertising revenue but their shipping charges and fees are really inappropriate. The newest thing is some sellers are getting a message that Ebay will automatically opt them in to pass on the seller’s shipping discount to buyers – while Ebay is still charging a fee on shipping! What the what? I guess they will continue to try to whittle down the margins of anyone not paying attention.
Poshmark has been great for me but the combo of offers-driven sales at 20% is rough for my new items. I’ve always liked Mercari and I’m really hoping they make a comeback in 4th quarter. They are holding at 10% seller fees and if they gather steam hopefully they can hire back some CS staff. The District platforms I tried pretty much became live selling focused platforms and didn’t really take off after a certain point. I’ve heard mixed things about Vinted but would consider trying some lower end stuff there if added by Nifty. I’m looking out for more information about Facebook’s app.
I really am not so interested in clothes or running around to garage sales but I did go out on our Citywide garage sale day. I got some high end clothing – Johnny Was – from a lady who lost weight on GLP1 and it all sold really fast and was super easy to ship. Kinda made me think about garage sales in a different light. I also got some free Ralph Lauren wallpaper that sold immediately.
