Vinted and the Rise of Sustainable Second-Hand Fashion
The rise in conscious buying by consumers around sustainability and ethical concerns has resulted in a surge in the popularity of vintage and second-hand clothing.
Lithuanian-based Vinted is one of the most successful second-hand marketplaces online, rivalling ecommerce giants eBay and Depop.
Just look at Vinted’s figures to see how much the company has grown:
- Revenue increased 36% in just 12 months (2024 vs 2023), with net profit increasing 330% year-on-year.
- In 2025, revenue grew by 40% to over 1 billion euros, while the company’s gross merchandise volume surpassed 10 billion euros.
- The company operates in over 23 European markets with continued expansion planned.
The rise in conscious buying by consumers around sustainability and ethical concerns has resulted in a surge in the popularity of vintage and second-hand clothing.
Lithuanian-based Vinted is one of the most successful second-hand marketplaces online, rivalling ecommerce giants eBay and Depop.
Just look at Vinted’s figures to see how much the company has grown:
- Revenue increased 36% in just 12 months (2024 vs 2023), with net profit increasing 330% year-on-year.
- In 2025, revenue grew by 40% to over 1 billion euros, while the company’s gross merchandise volume surpassed 10 billion euros.
- The company operates in over 23 European markets with continued expansion planned.
In the first few years, the company grew rapidly as people used the platform to buy and sell second-hand clothes. But one problem remained: it was free for users and advertising barely covered costs. In 2014, in an effort to generate revenue, the company announced a 20% sales commission. The result? Website traffic almost halved overnight.
To save the company, Thomas Plantenga was hired as a consultant. According to Forbes, his “prescription was tough medicine” as he closed most Vinted offices outside Lithuania, axed half the staff, and slashed fees by 75%.
His biggest and boldest recommendation was to invest in TV advertising. A blitz of ads in Germany, Vinted’s biggest market, fell flat, but the co-founders kept going and invested $800,000 in ads on French TV, which proved very successful.
Within seconds of the ads airing, downloads soared. Now, Vinted boasts more than 100 million users globally and has become Lithuania’s first unicorn company with a valuation of over $5 billion.
