The secondhand fashion market is rapidly professionalizing. Private sellers who once simply cleared out personal clutter are now treating resale as a full-time business — listing across multiple channels, sourcing more professionally, and reaching into the territory of specialist secondhand chains and other retailers.

In its State of Resale Report, European secondhand fashion wholesale platform Fleek notes that a new tier is emerging between casual users who list a few items on Vinted and traditional secondhand retailers: a growing number of platform sellers are effectively running small stores, just ones the outside world rarely sees. According to the report, Fleek surveyed 339 active sellers across 22 countries and combined the findings with its own search and sales data.

These sellers operate in ways that closely resemble formal retail. The report describes them as sourcing strategically, tracking trends, running multiple sales channels, and constantly replenishing inventory — much like traditional retailers in their assortment, new-arrival and supply-chain rhythms.

The direct consequence of these "invisible small stores" is a shifting competitive landscape. With flexible multi-platform operations and trend-driven assortments, these professionalized resellers are starting to take share from specialist secondhand chains and other specialist retailers, meaning the latter now face not only peers but thousands of individual merchants grown on platforms.

For the used-clothing trade and the secondhand fashion industry, this marks a structural signal: the supply side of secondhand circulation is shifting from scattered private disposal toward micro-businesses with sourcing, trend-judgment and multi-channel operating capabilities. The boundary between platform sellers and specialist retailers is thus blurring, and sourcing battles, price competition and platform ecosystem rules may all adjust accordingly.

Source: Vinted is "serious business": how resellers are becoming increasingly formidable competitors to retailers - RetailDetail EU · Originally published 2026-09-24