The British secondhand economy is now worth £7 billion a year, and the platforms have specialised hard. Vinted owns clothes and accessories. eBay still rules electronics, collectibles, and anything with a serial number. Depop sits between them. Facebook Marketplace owns furniture. Picking the wrong platform for your item halves your payout — and almost everyone does it.
Here''s the map.
Vinted — clothes, accessories, books
Vinted charges sellers nothing. The buyer pays a small "Buyer Protection" fee on top of your asking price, and pays postage on top of that. Everything you list at £15 is £15 in your pocket. No listing fees, no insertion fees, no end-of-sale percentage. This is why it''s eaten the secondhand clothing market.
What sells well:
- Brand-name clothes in good condition (Zara, ASOS, Lululemon, anything North Face)
- Children''s clothes (huge market, fast turnover)
- Books, especially recent paperbacks and textbooks
- Accessories: handbags, scarves, jewellery
What doesn''t:
- No-brand fast fashion (race to the bottom; you''ll list at £3 and not sell)
- Anything visibly worn — Vinted buyers expect "like new"
- Bulky items (postage eats the profit)
The listing tricks that work:
- Bundle pricing. Set a minimum-2-item bundle discount of 20–30%. Most Vinted sales are bundles; if yours aren''t, your prices are wrong.
- Drop the price at 7pm on Sunday. That''s the busiest browsing time. Vinted sends "saved item dropped in price" notifications.
- Honest photos in daylight. The phone-photo-on-bedroom-floor look kills more sales than bad prices.
- List 5 a day, not 50 in one go. Vinted''s feed favours new listings; spread them out.
A reasonable target: £150–£250 in a weekend from clearing one wardrobe.
eBay — electronics, collectibles, anything serialised
eBay UK takes ~13% in fees but is still the highest-paying market for non-clothing items, by a wide margin. The buyer pool is bigger, more specialist, and willing to pay for rare things.
What sells well:
- Old phones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles (sealed boxes triple value)
- Watches, especially Casio and Seiko in working order
- Records, CDs, video games — niche items reach niche buyers
- Anything broken but identifiable (eBay has a "for parts or not working" category — surprisingly active)
eBay vs Vinted on the same item: A 5-year-old iPhone in working condition: Vinted £80–£120, eBay £180–£240. A vintage leather jacket: Vinted £40, eBay £35 (more competition, smaller audience). The platform follows the buyer, not the item.
The listing tricks:
- List as auction starting at £0.99 for high-demand items. The bidding war beats Buy It Now.
- Use "Free Postage" — buyers filter for it. Build the postage cost into your price.
- End the listing on a Sunday evening — Sunday auction-end sales close 10–15% higher than weekday ends.
- Take 8+ photos. eBay rewards listings with full photo sets in search ranking.
Facebook Marketplace — furniture, bulky, local-only
Facebook Marketplace charges nothing and handles no payments. You meet the buyer; they pay cash or bank transfer; you hand over the thing. No postage to fight with.
What sells well:
- Furniture, especially IKEA you assembled and don''t want to disassemble
- White goods (washing machines, fridges)
- Bikes, prams, kids'' bulky toys
- Building materials and DIY tools
What doesn''t:
- Clothes (Vinted buyers won''t come to your door)
- Small electronics (eBay is better)
- Anything where the buyer expects warranty
The listing tricks:
- List locally first. Marketplace shows local listings before national. Same item in your borough sells faster than the same item 20 miles away.
- Cash on collection only. Scams happen mostly through "I''ll pay via PayPal F&F and arrange a courier" messages. Decline.
- Bring everything outside before the buyer arrives so they can''t see your home.
Depop — vintage, streetwear, anything aesthetic
Depop sits between Vinted (cheap, fast) and eBay (broad, fee-heavy). Audience skews younger and more fashion-aware. You pay a 10% selling fee plus PayPal transaction fees.
What sells well:
- Vintage band tees, denim, military surplus
- Y2K / 90s revival anything
- Designer secondhand
- Curated lots ("90s grunge bundle for size 10")
What doesn''t:
- Plain high-street brands (Vinted is cheaper)
- Anything modern unless it''s niche
The Depop trick is aesthetic listing. Same brown corduroy jacket: photographed flat on white background = £12. Photographed on a model in a sunlit room = £45.
Music Magpie — when you don''t want the hassle
Music Magpie and Ziffit pay you a fixed quote for books, CDs, DVDs, phones, and tech in bulk. You scan the barcodes, they courier collect, you get paid in 3–5 days.
Pay is 30–60% lower than Vinted/eBay, but time-to-cash is the lowest of any platform. If you have 50 books gathering dust and don''t want to list them one by one, this is the move.
The full tier list
For each thing you want to sell, here''s what pays most:
| Item type | First-choice platform |
|---|---|
| Brand clothing | Vinted |
| Vintage / streetwear | Depop |
| Designer luxury | eBay (or Vestiaire for £500+) |
| Books | Vinted bundles, or Music Magpie for bulk |
| Phones, laptops, gaming consoles | eBay |
| Cameras, watches, hi-fi | eBay |
| Furniture, white goods | Facebook Marketplace |
| Bikes, prams, sports kit | Facebook Marketplace |
| Records, CDs, video games | eBay |
| Children''s clothes | Vinted |
Three rules that double your take
- List on the right platform. Worth saying twice. The wrong platform halves your payout.
- Photograph in daylight. Doubles your sell-through rate and lets you ask 30% more.
- Reply within an hour. Both Vinted and eBay buyers go cold within two. Saturday morning is the magic browsing window.
A drawer of clothes, an old phone, a chair you don''t love, and a stack of books is — across the right platforms — comfortably £400–£600 of weekend money. Most British households are sitting on a high three figures of forgotten value.
The trick is just listing it.