How Ireland embraced 'pre-loved' e-commerce

Jeans that are too tight, a leather jacket from years ago, that fabulous wedding guest dress that will never be worn again.

A few years ago, the only option for getting rid of unwanted clothes was bringing them to a charity shop, giving away to friends and family or recycle.

It's not surprising that Irish shoppers have an urge to get rid of stuff – statistics show we've accumulated a lot of it.

An average Irish household spends around €2,000 on clothes and shoes a year, according to the CSO data from 2022-2023 (since then, that figure has likely increased to around €2,500 due to inflation).

Ireland stands out among its European peers when it comes to the amount of new textiles – mostly clothes – bought each year.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland's clothing consumption was 53 kg per capita in 2019, well above the EU average.

"It's like a mental load when you think about it. How many jackets or black handbags do you need?" said one user from Cork, who has sold 200 items on Vinted since last Christmas.

Online platforms: from eBay to Vinted

According to the CSO, in 2024 38% of Irish women and 25% of Irish men bought at least one secondhand item of clothing at a second-hand shop or online marketplace.

In 12 months since last May, spending in online second-hand stores like Vinted soared 197% among AIB customers.

Such platforms allow users to buy and sell items to one another, with varying degrees of mediation by the websites (including app fees, shipping arrangements, and customer support).

While Lithuania-based Vinted has clearly stirred things up since entering the Irish market two years ago, it wasn't the first platform helping consumers here to clear out their wardrobe while making a few bob along the way.

Depop has been around since 2018 and became particularly popular among Gen Z.

Primary school teacher Aisling Donoghue, who had used the platform for years before relocating to Australia a month ago, says she learned to navigate it without getting overwhelmed.

"It's such a big platform and you need to know what exactly you're looking for - there are thousands of things."

Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Adverts.ie and DoneDeal have all been options for fashion reselling.

However, it appears that Vinted's shipping terms have allowed it to make a real dent in the market.

Before entering Ireland in November 2024, the Lithuanian company had already become widely popular among British, German, Polish and other European consumers.

In its annual results for 2025, Vinted reported a 38% jump in revenue to €1.1 billion, while the total value of products sold on the platform grew by 47% to €10.8 billion.

With millions of monthly users, it has become the largest platform for second-hand shopping in Europe.

Vinted's spokesperson for Ireland Euan Steedman told RTÉ News that it "does not publish the total number of members and transactions externally" but said that " the Irish market continues to grow."

What it did differently was integrate shipment fees into the platform.

Its rivals would normally leave delivery arrangements to be sorted out by sellers and buyers themselves.

On Vinted, the buyer pays for delivery (with prices much lower than those offered by postal services), while a label can be printed from the app or at a post office via QR code.

An Post, which saw e-commerce package revenue jump 3.5% last year, said that as a contract customer, Vinted "negotiates contract terms for bulk shipping", which might explain how it keeps shipping fees low.

Likely responding to the influx of such shipments, An Post this week launched a new drop off service, allowing customers to send small parcels via dropboxes, bypassing post offices.

With billions of euro circulating in the second-hand resale market, other retail players, traditionally known for selling new clothing, have been trying to tap into it.

Germany's Zalando, which operates in Ireland, offers second-hand items. Rather than being sold peer-to-peer, the goods are collected, checked and shipped by the company's second-hand partner, Zalando Recommerce.

The company promises that all Zalando pre-owned items are "individually vetted to ensure they are perfectly wearable and ready for their next owner."

Competition for physical second-hand shops?

To some extent, online second-hand platforms rival vintage and charity shops.

However, Chair of Charity Retail Mark Sweeney does not believe that pre-owned e-commerce has had a negative impact on charity shops.

"In fact, and it's a strongly held belief within a lot of the Irish charity sector, that those online sales platforms have popularised and made shopping second-hand normal," he told RTÉ News.

Mr Sweeney, who is also responsible for supply chain at Oxfam Ireland, argues that some items posted on online platforms might end up in charity shops anyway, if people don't fail to sell them.

Having the opportunity to try on an item is also still valued by customers choosing brick-and-mortar vintage and charity shops.

It's fast fashion that is having the most negative impact on charity retail, Mr Sweeney said.

The quality of items donated to Oxfam and other charity shops has decreased significantly in the last three years, he explained, with the rise in popularity of Chinese online retailers.

With the work that goes into sorting, cleaning, and pricing the items, these extremely cheap items offer little financial value.

"I always put the question back to people: if you buy a [new] t-shirt online for €1.50 or €2 and then you donate it to a charity shop, what would you expect the charity shop can sell it for?"

"Nobody wants them, because, well, you can buy them new online for €1.50."

"My time too precious" to chase a stolen item

Lost parcels, delivery delays, fake products and poor customer services are among some complaints shared by users of Vinted in Ireland and across Europe.

The origin of some items is one of the issues, especially when it comes to buying designer clothing. Some can be advertised for hundreds of euro.

Vinted asks sellers to provide evidence of authenticity but cannot guarantee it, unless the buyer chooses to pay for individual verification.

In some markets, Vinted has reportedly been used by resellers of new fast-fashion clothing with mark-ups as much as 100%.

Dutch newspaper NRC found at least 50 accounts offering items from Shein and Temu disguised as unique pieces.

Commercial reselling of new clothes is officially banned by Vinted.

So far in 2026, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has received 140 consumer complaints from Irish users relating to Vinted and Depop, compared with 52 contacts in 2025.

That includes reports of goods not being delivered, delivery delays, order cancellations, and sellers keeping the money without actually sending the item.

It is a relatively small number of complaints received compared to the total number 45,000 consumer contacts the CCPC receives a year. It's also a fraction of all purchases made on those websites.

However, it is not necessarily an indicator of how many users actually had issues – many might simply choose to let it go.

A Vinted seller from Cork did just that when a parcel worth €30 was "stolen" in France – the buyer falsely claimed they couldn't access the parcel of a local locker facility.

"The time involved in trying to sort that and fighting with Vinted... My time was too precious."