How does Vinted make money?

Vinted being a platform that offers to publish ads and sell items completely free of charge, you must have asked yourself more than once: but how does Vinted make money? Because their revenue system is not as clear as the one of another company like Cdiscount or Amazon, for example.

Since Vinted is not completely transparent about all the sources of revenue that its website and application can generate, we decided in this article to highlight where Vinted gets its profits from.

Buyer Protection: the equivalent of a commission for Vinted?

In the Vinted community, there is a large debate about Buyer Protection. Because if sellers can indeed publish and sell without having to pay anything, for buyers, it is not the same story.

Indeed, the buyers are obliged to pay this famous Buyer Protection for each of their orders. Its fixed price is 0,70 €, to which is also added 5% of the price of the article. And to which are added the shipping costs.

This Buyer Protection, sold as insurance for buyers in case of problems with their items once received, is frowned upon by a large number of users in the community.

Why? Because many feel that it is only Protected in name. When you have a problem with an item you received that was damaged, for example, and you try to contact Vinted's customer service, the help you receive is not really convincing and you wonder why you paid for this "insurance" that doesn't protect you at all.

But also because many users in the Vinted community see this Buyer Protection as a disguised and somewhat fraudulent commission.

Thus, it appears only at the time of validating the order, its price not being indicated before when you consult the articles.

It is currently the subject of a lawsuit launched by the association UFC Que Choisir in May 2021 for fraudulent action. It remains to be seen what will happen with the court decision.

The different Boosts

Vinted offers you the possibility to boost your ads or your dressing room for a certain fee. This is one of the ways used by Vinted to earn money.

 Users can buy two types of boosts, which will give their articles more visibility and from which Vinted will make a profit as a result.

What are these Boosts and what are their prices? Here's everything you need to know:

• Item Boosts: As the name suggests, Item Boosts are designed to make the items that sellers have decided to highlight more visible on Vinted, when a potential buyer is looking for that type of item.
  There are two options: the first and cheapest, at €1.15. This Boost puts an item in the spotlight for 3 consecutive days or until the item is sold out, if necessary.
  The second option is a Boost for 1,95 €. By choosing this option, the item will be boosted for 7 consecutive days or until it is sold.
  
  
• Dressing Room Boosts: This option allows sellers to showcase multiple items at once for 7 days in a row for $6.95.

All profits from the sales of Boosts go directly into the pockets of the Vinted company.

Advertisements

You must have noticed the numerous ads that appear when you search on Vinted. Of course, the advertisers on the platform pay Vinted a certain amount of money in exchange for this advertising. This is one of the other ways Vinted makes money. Every time you click on one of these ads, Vinted makes a little more money.

What you probably don't know is that Vinted uses Google Ads Publisher to generate the advertisements that are offered on the platform. This means that the advertisements are adapted and targeted according to each user, their tastes and their searches on Google.

In a nutshell

Vinted's revenue in 2019 was €1.3 billion, but by 2021, the app's value was estimated at €3.5 billion, after the company raised funds in that same year.

With these figures, it's more than reasonable to say that Vinted has no problem making money, quite the contrary. As the application seems to be in the early stages of growth, we can imagine that its profits will follow the same curve.