Hashtags. Can you remember a world without them? I feel like it was Twitter that ‘invented’ the idea, but now you see them everywhere. People even say it out loud: “Hashtag awkward!”.
Cringe.
Well, one of the many places you can find hashtags is on Vinted. Sellers use them in their item descriptions to help get their items seen and sold, and I think it works – but only if you use them in the right way.
I never used to bother with them, but when I was struggling to sell a ‘like new’ baby carrier my daughter had absolutely refused to settle in, I gave it a go. After editing my description to add some hashtags, the carrier sold the next day.
Coincidence? Maybe. But maybe not.
I have experimented with hashtags a lot since then, and I am convinced that they work if you use them correctly. So let me share what I have learned with you.
Vinted’s Advice On Hashtags
Before I get stuck into my own experiences, let’s have a little look at Vinted’s own advice on hashtags.
Vinted says it uses your item title and description to work out whether your listing matches what someone’s searching for. So if you were selling a River Island dress, putting “River Island dress” in the title and mentioning it in the description would be a good idea.
Before you get carried away with adding hashtags, you should also make sure you fill in the brand and category fields properly, because buyers use those to narrow down their search. Vinted will take their filtering choices into consideration too. As well as making sure your photos are top quality of course.
Hashtags are fine to add to the item description, but Vinted leaves us guessing on the details. Its search guidance doesn’t specifically explain how to best use them, although it does tell you how not to use them.
For a start, it specifically says that unrelated or excessive hashtags can get your listing hidden. It’s also very strict when it comes to tags that have nothing to do with what you’re selling. So if you’re selling an item from Primark and you put #Zara in the description, the big Vinted algorithm will come down on you hard.
As for what counts as excessive, Vinted doesn’t say, but my advice is to use one, two, or three hashtags at the very most, and here’s why.
How Many Hashtags is Too Many?
I’ve seen TikTok videos and other advice online which recommends cramming in as many relevant hashtags as you can, but I think this is a bad idea. I’ve tried it myself and it didn’t work.
As far as I can tell, including too many hashtags just confuses the Vinted algorithm. It’s like they all get in each other’s way. I think one or two is the sweet spot, or three at the very most. Just pick the most relevant hashtags and use those.
For example when I was selling my Ergo baby carrier, I just added #BabyCarrier and #ErgoBaby. After I did that views and favourites increased massively and the item sold within a day. Bear in mind that this is after I had already bumped the item without hashtags in the description. That means bumping the item wasn’t enough to get it sold but adding the hashtags was.
So if you’ve got something that’s had a fair few views and favourites but hasn’t sold, try adding a couple of very specific hashtags before you pay for a bump. You might be able to get it shifted for free.
Which Hashtags You Should Use
My three-hashtag rule is based on a simple system:
- What am I selling?
- What’s the brand or model?
- Any other useful information or niche detail?
Going back to my baby carrier, I used #BabyCarrier because that was literally what I was selling. Then I used #ErgoBaby because that was the brand that people might be looking for. I didn’t use a third hashtag because there was nothing special to say about this baby carrier.
However a third hashtag can be useful if there’s a detail someone might want to go out of their way to find. Let’s say you are selling a pair of wide-fit Clarks school shoes for example. I’d go for #SchoolShoes, #Clarks, and #WideFit or maybe #WideFitSchoolShoes. This covers all of the most important aspects of what is being sold, and importantly, it gives the algorithm a very clear picture of what you are selling. Adding other hashtags like #blackwidefitschoolshoes or #size9G just muddies the water.
I would still add those details to the description, I just wouldn’t add them as hashtags.
You might be wondering why adding hashtags with words already in the title and description matters, since Vinted say they use this info to decide what to show prospective buyers. The honest answer is I don’t know. I just know that I get better results when I do it.
It may not be quite so straightforward if you aren’t selling something typical – if you had a jigsaw for sale, for example, or a lamp – but you can still follow the basic principle. Less is more in most cases.
Once you have chosen your tags, just put them one after another at the end of your listing with a space in-between, like this: #vintedhashtags #lifeunexpected #happyselling!