What:  Households earning over £80,000 are the most likely to have used Vinted in the past year, with 52% having bought or sold on the platform.

Why it is important: It overturns the assumption that resale is purely a cost-driven behaviour, suggesting affluent shoppers see secondhand as a considered choice rather than a compromise — a signal brands should factor into how they position resale.

Data from brand tracking platform Tracksuit shows that 52% of UK households earning over £80,000 have bought or sold on Vinted in the past 12 months, compared with 34% of those earning under £20,000, with usage rising steadily across income brackets. The same pattern holds on Facebook Marketplace and, to a lesser extent, eBay. This comes as UK clothing sales remain slow to recover, with average weekly sales volumes up just 0.6% in the three months to July versus 2023 levels, while secondhand goods sales grew 28.4% over the same period.

Tracksuit's head of revenue, Toby Rozenblit, frames the data as evidence that resale is "a durable shift in how people are shopping" rather than a downturn blip. Separate research from consumer intelligence platform Konfidant links this to "loud budgeting," a trend in which affluent households increasingly discuss scrimping openly, framing frugality as discernment rather than financial struggle. By age, Vinted use is concentrated among under-55s, while eBay retains stronger appeal with older shoppers.

IADS Notes: Vinted's ascent to become the UK's third-largest fashion retailer by customer count (Retail Week, February 2026) set the stage for the affordability, sustainability and discovery dynamics that continue to draw shoppers away from traditional retail, a trajectory confirmed by the platform's 38% revenue jump (Reuters, April 2026). This mainstreaming is structural rather than cyclical: secondhand apparel has been expanding roughly four times faster than the broader apparel sector and is projected to approach $79bn by 2030 (Retail Dive, May 2026), squeezing full-price department stores even as off-price chains hold their ground. The generational pull behind this shift is reinforced by analysis of Depop's engagement model, which shows younger resale audiences responding to emotional and behavioural triggers — wish-lists, scarcity, personalisation — that traditional retailers have yet to fully replicate (Inside Retail, June 2026).

High-income households are the most likely to shop secondhand