There is a special place in Hell for people who order something on Vinted then don’t pick it up.
It’s the most annoying thing in the world. Literally. Alright, not literally, but it’s really chuffing annoying. You’ve gone to all the effort of listing the item, ironing it (maybe 😇🤐), packaging it, printing off the label… and the person paying for it can’t even be bothered to collect it from the drop off point.
Thankfully this is relatively rare. I’ve been selling on Vinted for a number of years and have shifted roughly 3 wardrobes worth of stuff on the platform, and I have only had non-collections on a handful of occasions.
The first time it happened I had a sort of mini panic. I’m not sure why. It’s not exactly a life altering event, but something about not knowing what happened next triggered my anxious brain.
If this has happened to you, and you are left wondering what happens to your Vinted item if the buyer doesn’t collect it, this post is for you.
Deadline Countdown
Vinted are quite thirsty for a resale platform. They send a lot of emails.
“The delivery partner has your parcel!”
“Your parcel is at the sorting office! We’ll let you know once it has been shipped.”
“You’re parcel has been shipped!”
“Your parcel is waiting to be collected! We’ll let you know when the buyer has collected it.”
“Your buyer knows the parcel is waiting to be collected!
“Sit tight! Your buyer still has 2 days to collect your parcel. We will let you know when it has been collected!”
That’s not even the end, there are more, I just got bored of writing them.
Anyway, the point is, you know exactly what is going on with your £3.50 t-shirt right up until the point the buyer collects the thing. Then the emails stop.
You start to get a bit of a Spidey sense when the buyer is 24 hours from the collection deadline. Most buyers collect right away, a few take an extra day, but not many leave it right until the last minute. In my own experience, I would say that a “time is running out” type email ends in non-collection roughly 50% of the time.
Rather unhelpfully, Vinted don’t tell you what will happen in this situation until after it has happened, leaving you in limbo. So here is what happens.
Uncollected Items are Returned
If a buyer misses the collection deadline, that parcel is returned to sender. In other words, you get it back.
This wouldn’t be so bad, but it also means that the sale is cancelled. So you don’t get the money and have to start the process from scratch.
Well, that’s not quite true because Vinted offer to relist the item right away. So you don’t have to fill in all the details again, you can relist the item just as it was with a single tap on your phone. But if and when it sells you need to print off another label etc. At least it is already packaged I suppose.
In my view, anything under a tenner should be confiscated and given to the seller anyway. But I don’t run Vinted.
The buyer gets their money back, minus the delivery costs, which is some small comfort to frustrated sellers. At least the buyer’s laziness cost them a couple of quid.
I’m only kidding, I’m not that resentful. There could be all manner of reasons why someone is unable to collect.
If it is a genuine mistake they can always buy the item from you again, but this has never once happened on the occasions I have had items returned to me. The buyers don’t even get negative feedback for it.
So there you go. The answer is when a Vinted item is not collected by the buyer, the seller gets it back and has effectively had their time wasted.
Sorry I couldn’t give you a more positive answer!