Thrifting online: my best kept secrets + my thrift experience in Amsterdam
It takes dedication and a few tricks to shop second hand clothing online. Depending which website you're browsing, you have to pay attention to different things and I'm telling you my best tricks.
Before I tell you everything about how I browse on different reseller websites, let’s quickly talk about the difference between vintage shopping and thrifting. Both describe buying second hand but in thrift shops the garments are usually not curated, for example a charity shop. Whereas in vintage shops, the items are from specific designers or times. So depending on if you want to go thrifting or vintage shopping, you have to select the websites (and shops) you’re going to visit.
**Scroll down to the end for**: a little list I curated over the years with a few brands to hold out an eye for while thrifting and my thrifting experience in amsterdam this weekend!
Now obviously your location does play a role in the online shopping game. I am based in Germany and do not have access to, for example, Craigslist, like people from the US do. But I will be talking about similar platforms and the techniques I use can be implemented on those similar platforms from your country as well.
My favourite Websites for thrifting and vintage shopping online are:
Vestiaire Collective
Vinted
Sellpy
eBay Kleinanzeigen
Vintage shopping: A Guide to Vestiaire Collective
Vestiaire Collective is my favorite platform for hunting designer goods. First of all: you can buy from people worldwide. It’s up to you if you want to risk import taxes though, I usually always filter to European sellers only and VC still has the biggest selection in my opinion.
I love that you can also negotiate prices and message the sellers. What I also realized when shopping for my Balenciaga City Bag (that I did buy on VC) is that you have to put pieces that are out of your budget in your wishlist because sometimes the sellers do crazy price drops and suddenly, the piece is within your budget and you can act fast after getting that price drop mail.
Another tip is to be patient with your search and also with your negotiations. With my bags so far it took me up to a few weeks to really observe the market, see what the items sell for and make up my mind about what a good price could be. Then try your luck with negotiating, but make sure you dont go too low to not offend the seller. With my bag I made three offers and the third one is the one the seller accepted.
On Vestiaire Collective I mostly use the filter for specific brands, colors and materials and not keywords.
Thrifting: A Guide to Vinted
Vinted is a reselling platform where anyone can upload their garments and you can message them, negotiate prices etc. Which I love! I can ask questions about the sizing, ask for more pictures and talk about the prices and shipping.
Usually on Vinted I try to use descriptive keywords for whatever I’m looking for. How would a person describe the piece? How (long) are the sleeves? (long sleeves, puffy arms) What’s the cut like? (bootcut, very wide) What’s the material? (cashmere, 100% wool) How does the material appear? (shiny, glittery..) When doing that, I also try to avoid very catchy and trendy words like y2k etc. because we want to find the good bargains, right? And your micro trend end boss knows exactly whats hot right now and she wants to get her bag – which ist fair I guess, but we want to find the suburban moms selling their old stuff.
With a few descriptive keywords I use the filters additionally sometimes, for example when I know exactly that I want something from a specific brand or in only one color (or with shoes I filter for my shoe size) but otherwise I don’t use the filters as much, keywords work best on Vinted.
Thrifting: A Guide to Sellpy
Contrary to Vinted, the Filters on Sellpy are essential for your searches, because keywords really don’t work. It’s always worth a try, but mostly I don’t get a lot of results with keywords only.
It is a swedish reseller platform (which means lots of scandi brands!!), where people send their clothes to a warehouse and Sellpy does all the work for you. They take photos of the garments, upload them, categorize them. Also over time, the price will automatically get reduced, so putting your favorite pieces on your wishlist is a must – you’ll get notified when the price drops.
I love Sellpy for when I want to browse specific brands or materials. Because that is easy to filter out. Also they usually create specific trending categories on the landing page, which can also be fun to check out. It’s also great if you have specific wishes like a navy blue short cotton pants, you can filter everything else out, browse the selection and the photos (that are made in a studio on mannequins) make it easy to compare everything. They also take photos of all defects. And: you can return your order (costs a few euros though)
Thrifting: A Guide to eBay Kleinanzeigen (or any local reselling platform)
On eBay Kleinanzeigen you can sell anything from shoes to used socks to real estate. The idea is that you can buy from people in your city or around you. It is also great for furniture. But we’re here for clothes.
To be honest, eBay Kleinanzeigen is never really my first choice, but it can be great for specific brand or material searches. For example: I found two great pairs of cowboy boots there for a good price. It’s kinda of the same scheme like with Vinted: We want to find the people selling the most drippy garments without even knowing. When I was on the hunt for my Balenciaga city bags, I tried searches like ‘Balenciaga slouchy bag’ or ‘Balenciaga Shopper’ and I actually found people selling City Bags without knowing it. Unfortunately they were not the exact bags I wanted, but still: Think, like a suburban mother and how she would describe the bag. If you’re looking for designer pieces that are very unique in their look (Like Issey Miyake for Example) it is also worth to try out searches without the designer name and just hope someone is absolutely clueless selling a black pleats long sleeve for 10€ without checking the tag.
On my online thrifting and vintage shopping journeys I came across a few brands that caught my attention and I want to share them with you.
Less known Brands to look out for:
Cop Copine
Gianfranco Ferre
Plein Sud
Marithe & Francois Girbaud
Kookai
Jil Sander Navy
Pauw
Nicowa
Riani
United Colors Benetton
Apart
House of Dagmar
Xanaka
My thrifting experience in Amsterdam
… Or should I say vintage shopping experience? Because I did end up buying a vintage designer pieces. Let‘s dive in:
My first purchase was at „Laan“ and I bought the most beautiful vintage navy blue men‘s knit cardigan (80% cotton, 10% silk, 10% cashmere) for 150 Euros. Condition is generally great but it does need a little fabric shaving session. Which I am more than willing to do for this price.
They had a lovely selection of vintage designer clothes, bags and sunglasses. Fair pricing too.
Before that I went to „Umé Studio“ which is basically a second hand store where Amsterdam based content creators bring their stuff and it being sold there. You can find really cool, trendy brands and mostly almost unworn garments. Love the concept!
Across the street from Umé was the Store Archive1906, which had a mix of non designer vintage but also designer pieces and an insane collection of vintage sunglasses. A bit overpriced in my opinion, but they did do a great job of curating them, so I kinda get it. Still, I could not justify 295 Euros for those beautiful 70’s Dior Homme sunnies.
Last but not least I stumbled into Penny Lane Vintage and ended up buying yet another blue knit sweater (Vintage Burberry V-Neck 100% merino wool). We are heading into fall season though – as much as I don‘t want that to be true. The sweater was 85 Euros which I was willing to pay obviously, because contrary to shopping online I value the ability to inspect the garment, see the real color and try it on. It does have pilling too and needs fabric shaving as well (why do the store owners not bother!?) and it could have been 5-10 Euros cheaper. But the color is also stunning, soooo……
Fantastic article! That’s how I shop too. You definitely need time to get used to it and learn how each site works, but once you’re done with that… that’s when the fun begins and you can find grails for bargain prices indeed. You just need to be patient! 😅
I enjoyed this one, keep up the good work! :)
Excellent column today about thrusting online! Thank you Laura❤️