I love second-hand shopping. Spending hours searching, only to finally find a well-crafted, reasonably priced vintage jacket or something so unique you wouldn’t find it anywhere else, feels amazing. You walk away feeling good because you know you have kept something out of the landfill and, if it’s from a charity shop, supported a good cause in the process. For a while now, apps like Vinted, Depop, and eBay have helped expand this treasure hunt and made it easier for everyone to get involved and earn back some money, too. If you’re interested in doing this yourself, this is a great guide! But recently something has changed, and I hope you’ve noticed it too.
A few weeks ago, my friend noticed something strange on Vinted. She had found this account, which exclusively sold t-shirts. They were all at the same price, in a huge number of designs, and there was something slightly off about each photo. What’s more, the seller had no profile picture, no followers, and no reviews, which was odd considering the number of items they had for sale. It quickly became obvious that all of these t-shirts were AI-generated. She reported the account, but it just kept popping up until her whole feed was almost entirely AI. From this experience, I would say you can tell the image or text on a t-shirt is AI-generated, but the pictures often aren’t of great quality, so you need to look closely. The shirt’s background will look funny, as if it were superimposed onto a floor or bed. The texture and crumpling in the fabric just don’t look right; not following the surface the t-shirt would be on top of, or appearing completely smooth where the central design is, and crumpled everywhere else.
Is it really second hand Shopping?
Another problem with the online second hand market is the deliberate mislabelling of things as ‘second hand’, as cheap imitations of sought after items are bought from fast fashion companies and resold. I started to notice this last summer when the sparkly embroidered tops in pastel colours were the main item of the ‘ibiza style’ trend. My algorithm was full of them, and I came close to buying into the trend. But as I was deciding which one to buy, I noticed that in many posts, instead of disclosing the brand, they would say ‘no label’ or ‘unknown’. These tops were being sold for between 25 and 30 pounds. When looking up the style on Amazon and AliExpress, I found photos of identical tops in reviews, which were obviously bought and resold many times their actual value. Misleading people like this completely undermines what second-hand shopping is all about, as reselling fast fashion at inflated prices doesn’t reduce consumption; it just adds more opportunities for exploitation.
Problems for charity shops
The increase in online reselling is also affecting charity shops, which are burdened with Vinted rejects. Anything that could still fetch a good price gets resold online now, so anything too unfashionable or poor-quality gets dropped off at the charity shop. This leaves them full of items that online bargain hunters have already passed on, and their chances of being sold are further damaged by the higher prices physical shops are forced to charge due to maintenance costs. These clothes that don’t sell end up in landfills or are shipped overseas.
I realize this all sounds very gloomy, but there are still plenty of positives. Genuine person-to-person sales are still so important, and buying something that exists from someone who actually owns it is definitely better than buying new. The issue is that platforms like Vinted need better tools to remove AI posts and commercial resellers. As a buyer, you can help by reporting suspicious accounts and checking sales histories.