Can AI buy and sell stuff on Vinted and Depop better than you?
The secondhand market is expected to grow in the future, with AI making it easier for us not only to find the best deals but also to become better sellers. But how do we achieve that?
The way we see secondhand clothes has definitely changed over the years. I should know, rarely skipping a trip to a secondhand store, and being a proud Vinted seller and buyer for years, knowing the platform rules by heart.
Considering the current state of the world, secondhand platforms such as Depop, Vinted, ThredUp, Vestiaire Collective, and more are becoming increasingly popular, as they often offer unique pieces at affordable prices.
The importance of such platforms is also reflected in ThredUp’s annual resale report. It reveals that secondhand clothing sales are expected to reach $393 billion by 2030, growing twice as fast as the overall apparel market.
“Resale is no longer just growing, it’s taking share,” notes ThredUp’s CEO and co-founder James Reinhart.
Employing AI for a smoother experience
One of the key takeaways from the report, which surveyed more than 3,000 consumers and drew on insights from 50 top fashion brands, is that AI’s impact will grow.
The report reveals that users are ready to use AI to find special items, negotiate prices, and authenticate valuable items.
While it seems AI can now be easily implemented in many aspects of our lives, this won’t be that easy with the resale market.
“AI has enormous potential here, but the secondhand context creates unique technical challenges that don’t exist on traditional retail platforms,” says Jackie Swanson, Managing Partner at Gartner Consulting.
The expert notes that while on sites like Amazon or Asos, “AI-powered search and recommendation engines operate on structured, consistent product catalogs,” secondhand platforms are user-generated marketplaces.
“Every listing is one-of-a-kind, described inconsistently, and photographed under variable conditions. That makes traditional keyword search and collaborative filtering far less effective,” explains Swanson.
Nevertheless, the expert notes that some of its capabilities can already be used in resale.
Such are “vision models that can interpret a photo of an item and match it against inventory by style, color, silhouette, and condition, even without accurate seller-provided tags,” notes Swanson, sharing that such features can already be found in “Shop by image,” and “Find something like this.”
Another use of AI is related to “agentic commerce,” which would allow an AI agent to learn user preferences and check what’s available across different platforms to find relevant items.
“For secondhand, where the right item may appear briefly and unpredictably, this kind of persistent, proactive discovery is a genuine competitive advantage,” says Swanson.
The expert also added another limitation to the efficient use of AI. “AI is only as good as what it’s trained on,” he said, “and secondhand platforms have yet to crack the challenge of enriching messy, inconsistent listings at scale.”
Can AI solve existing resale problems?
As a frequent Vinted user, I noticed that more sellers tend to charge rather high prices for items, sometimes with the pretense that they are “new,” “never worn,” or “still with labels.”
This often prevents me from buying the item because I can sometimes get a better deal in an actual store, with the option to return or exchange it, which is not the case when you buy through Vinted.
Could this be an issue that, over time, deters users from buying secondhand, leading them to return to retail stores?
“Unlike traditional retail, secondhand marketplaces rely on millions of individual sellers who often price emotionally rather than rationally,” explains Siddardha Vangala, senior AI engineer, agreeing that it could push buyers into looking for an item in retail.
Nevertheless, the expert notes that this could also be resolved by AI.
“AI helps stabilize this by introducing dynamic pricing guidance. Platforms can use historical sales data, brand popularity, item condition, seasonality, and demand trends to suggest fair market prices to sellers before they list,” explains Vangala.
According to Swanson, such “dynamic pricing tools” also help sellers who aren’t left to rely on their “intuition” to guess what the item's price should be, increasing their chances of selling it.
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AI to guide sellers, too
That’s not the only way AI may help sellers.
“Sellers will increasingly rely on AI tools to automatically generate titles, categorize items, recommend prices, and even predict how long an item will take to sell,” says the expert.
It seems that it’s already being implemented, but not exactly right.
According to Vinted’s listing rules, users can only post item images that they took themselves. This means that they can’t add images from official store listings or any other photos they didn’t take themselves.
One Reddit user started a discussion where other netizens, complaining that some Vinted sellers were uploading AI-generated images, which violates the platform's rules.
Is anyone else incredibly annoyed by all the AI generated clothes on vinted?
by u/guiltysuperbrain in vinted
Some users noted that listings with AI-generated images should be reported the same as the listings with non-authentic photos.
Nevertheless, the use of AI in the resale market is here to stay.
I myself recently stumbled upon a site called VintyLook that helps users generate listings to increase visibility and attract more buyers.
“AI doesn’t just help people find deals – it helps make the second-hand ecosystem economically viable at scale,” concludes Vangala.
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