15 years of Vinted, Empowering Second-Hand at Scale
Vilnius, 29 November 2023 - Vinted, Europe’s leading C2C marketplace dedicated to second-hand fashion, celebrates its 15th anniversary. What started from a brilliant idea and a small community in Lithuania in 2008 grew into a thriving European business today, empowering millions of members across Europe and beyond to buy and sell second-hand items. The company reflects on some of its milestones from the past 15 years of making second-hand easy, affordable, and trustworthy and looks forward to what’s to come on its journey to make second-hand first choice worldwide.
How It All Started
A party, a late-night conversation, and a brilliant idea. That's how Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas first came up with the concept of Vinted. Their vision was simple yet profound: create a platform where individuals could buy and sell clothing from each other’s wardrobes. While it all started in 2008 with women's fashion in Lithuania, more markets and categories were gradually added over the past 15 years as the company grew.
- In 2013, Vinted launched on the French market. France soon became Vinted’s largest market and is still its most thriving market today, celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.
- In 2016 the business model changed significantly with the removal of a seller fee and introduction of a buyer protection fee, giving members peace of mind knowing their money and purchases are well protected.
- In 2019, Vinted became the first Lithuanian company to achieve unicorn status.
- In 2021, the shipping business Vinted Go was launched to promote deliveries to pick-up and drop-off points as a solution with a lower impact on the climate compared to in-home delivery.
15 Years of Impact
Over the past 15 years, the perception of second-hand fashion evolved significantly. When Vinted was founded, second-hand shopping was still primarily associated with thrift stores and garage sales. By now, according to Vinted’s first Climate Change Impact Report, one out of five Vinted members would choose second-hand over new, even if the price of a new item was the same. Environmental and social concerns are among the main drivers for Vinted members to choose second-hand. The report also evidenced that buying second-hand on Vinted is better for the climate than buying new - on average, shopping for a second-hand item on Vinted instead of buying new demonstrated an emissions saving of 1.8 kgCO₂e.
How it’s Going
Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Vinted: “As we look back on Vinted’s journey of the past 15 years, we are proud of how far we got. When you zoom out, it looks like a steady upward trend, yet we have faced many challenges along the way. Nevertheless, the adoption of second-hand has significantly increased over that time, and this gives us confidence that we are working in the right direction. At the moment, we see even more opportunities ahead of us and are excited about the future. We all know that the fashion industry causes significant harm to our planet, and we feel we have an opportunity to contribute to change this. Our commitment to drive innovation and offer solutions with a lower impact on the climate remains at the forefront of our mission to make second-hand first choice worldwide.”
In 2023 alone, Vinted launched in three new markets: Romania, Denmark, and Finland. After Sweden last year, Vinted is growing its presence in the Nordic countries. And that’s not all. Over the past months, we have introduced our ‘Item Verification’ service for members to trade higher-priced second-hand pieces with even more confidence. The launch marks a significant step forward to increase trust in the authenticity of designer second-hand items and combat counterfeiting. Our shipping business Vinted Go has expanded its network of pick-up and drop-off points (PUDO) to over 1000 lockers in multiple cities in France today. With its recent acquisition of the Dutch scale-up Homerr, Vinted Go is now also expanding its services to the Benelux.
> Discover an overview of some of our milestones here.