yes I’ve been doing this job for almost 20 years as a professional. (and therefore registered as such :))
Well, it happens. From one month to the next, it fluctuates. The correlation coefficient between 2 years is low.
There are really a lot of reasons that can explain your drop. Pragmatic reasons, outside of site bugs or context, and others, for me the main one, which I mention at the end of the post.
For example: how many new items did you put online in March and how? Same in April?
Of these items, all different, some are attractive, others less so. The best ones might have left in March.
Other avenues: sizes? colors? models? the condition of your used shoes (they will be different from one month to the next, that’s already a lot of factors that will cause fluctuations).
It’s a matter of very little, believe me.
I encountered this problem when I was selling jeans, the main product of my business.
With other exogenous reasons added, economic conditions leading to a substantial drop.
When you’re dealing with used items, you never have the same products, the same sizes, the same references.
Hashtags have always been crazy.
But for me, it all happens on another level.
Psychological mechanisms, the heart of the reactor, since every e-commerce site and social network today is based on a special cognitive functioning that aims to make you addicted (to put it very briefly, uncertainty leads to addiction and then to docility).
When you make your users dependent, therefore your customers, whether it’s TikTok or Vinted, you ensure that they stay. Buyers, as well as sellers. That’s the key to success.
And Vinted, in terms of uncertainty, has several levels, it’s a perfect example. To say that they play with it, via their algorithms, is only a very, very, very small step. And this would largely explain the sales fluctuations encountered. The greatest uncertainty is the visibility of a seller, or a group of sellers, in a given category, for example.
And it makes you addicted, you think about it, you think about it all the time, more and more, thinking it’s a personal problem, but it’s not.
Something that a site like eBay doesn’t do much, which explains why eBay functions very differently from Vinted, at all levels.
Selling and methods for doing business have nothing to do with it. It took me a while to understand that the eBay method didn’t work at all on Vinted.
And what I describe, they can vary it very quickly, (visibility) which for me explains the strong sales variations from one day, one week or one month to the next. (With pragmatic and identifiable reasons in addition)
Amazon works in the same way, and since they take 20%, I would say it’s even worse, but Amazon is not the subject here.
Developing everything would take time, but these are fascinating subjects, when you know the psychological processes, you don’t fall into them anymore.
2 Likes
I completely follow your reasoning, which is very interesting by the way.
Can you elaborate on how the method for selling on eBay differs from Vinted? I’m all the more curious because despite a few attempts, I’ve never been able to sell anything on eBay. So I must be doing it wrong.
13 favorites in 24 hours when I used to get maybe a hundred a day before, it’s laughable.
Knowing that I get a lot of views with Clemz so it’s impossible not to see me (I have almost no views, max 2 per article and even that)
And I continue to pay for the showcase dressing like a good pigeon, obviously, and I even added boosts that were useless.
For me, they clearly modified visibility parameters, it’s not possible otherwise, especially since I get the impression that it’s mainly pros who are complaining.
1 Like
After trying the showcase dressing room, I wasn’t convinced. At least Vinted offers statistics: I saw +20% views, but +1% offers and +0% sales…
The display window must have the same products, in large quantities. Only sneakers, only toys, only Zara jeans, or only the same brand, etc. Otherwise, it’s useless.
It’s true that sales haven’t been great lately, for 5 days…
On eBay, only a few categories still work. For clothes, it’s a 90% drop.
Despite this, there are still niches, and if you have followers who have been with you for a long time, it can work.
eBay is more professional. You can build a business, with employees, suppliers, it has all the tools, and they don’t kick you out overnight for no reason.
Selling is different because when you use the eBay search engine, it gives you what you asked for. Vinted doesn’t. Fundamental difference.
There are many other things, like negotiation, which is less obvious and has fewer customs.
Can you imagine making an offer for a cat tree on Amazon? No. eBay is the same.
Another point is seller contact, it’s not a direct messaging system where you just have to press a button to send a message or a 40% discount. It doesn’t encourage respect or courtesy.
On eBay, you can list a few products, and they will sell over time; they will always be in the search results; it’s long-term selling.
Vinted is very short-term selling, a few days. It’s the opposite.
For a while, I wondered why when I searched for a product on Vinted, a bunch of items that had nothing to do with what I asked for appeared. I thought the search engine wasn’t well-made. And then I understood. It’s intentional.
It’s the principle of scrolling, and social networks.
It’s also the principle of the slot machine and games of chance.
An experiment with rats demonstrated this well:
There is a system to feed the rat. When it activates it, it gets food.
1st experiment: when it presses, it always gets the same ration. It eats normally, behaves normally.
2nd experiment: when it presses, it gets nothing three times, then gets the ration once, then gets two rations. The rat becomes completely addicted and starts activating the system continuously.
Not knowing what it will get leads to addiction. And it gets something, it eats it all.
Vinted, or scrolling, or Instagram, and other things I would never use, are the same. (It annihilates your frontal lobe, the seat of your reason, and develops a lot of bad habits, especially in younger people, in short… it goes far.)
You type a search, you’ll get an item that matches but it’s not the right color, 10 that are completely wrong, one that’s not the right size, etc. What happens? You’ll spend hours on it, without being able to stop, or even buy anything.
On the seller’s side, one day great sales, the next day 0, the next day it’s okay, etc. This is easy to implement because it all depends on a seller’s visibility or lack thereof.
After that, there are rules to follow if you want to be more visible, but that won’t prevent variations. And with that, I can tell you that you won’t stop thinking about it; it will create stress and anxiety for you.
On eBay, this system was not in place.
On eBay, sales were fairly consistent, on average per day over the year, with the usual variations, Christmas, summer.
But it was never €300 one day and €30 the next.
Working on Vinted is quite nerve-wracking because of that. So, you have to take a step back and accept the rules of a game you didn’t set and that change without you being able to do anything about it.
Objectifying, that is, understanding the cause, reduces anxiety. But when you don’t understand anything, it can cause significant psychological damage, especially when it makes no practical sense. (Festinger’s cognitive dissonance)
Like during COVID: banning green toys but not blue ones… these are manipulation techniques that can lead to real madness. All of this is well-documented.
Sorry, I went off on a tangent haha, there would be so much more to say, from other angles, sociological, biological, economic, philosophical.
Have a good weekend 
3 Likes
Hello everyone, I’m joining your topic, I’m also a pro seller (second-hand games and toys shop but very focused on Lego) recently I’m gradually updating my listings, modifying the # for better referencing. I detail my listings as much as possible to be sure people can find them via the reference of a Lego figurine for example my listing.
Today, after making a new custom frame for clemz, I go to my personal Vinted account and search for one of my listings by typing a Lego figurine reference « sh0585a ». It returns 4 results but not my listing… The ref is in the title and in the description. So I search for other references in my wardrobe. I sort by most recent results, I had just reposted my listings, I also try by relevance, nothing works… My listings do not appear. I am disheartened. I have « organic » favorites, meaning from people scrolling through their feed, but I think if someone has a specific search that I have in my wardrobe, no one will find me.
I imagine I’m shadow banned (I don’t know if that exists on Vinted?) but I find it very poor. Moreover, in recent days I have also received many messages saying that I am « rate limited » or something like that. If anyone has more information on this?
Or a solution to know if you are banned without knowing it.
shadowban indeed, it’s if our ads don’t appear in recent after going live (there’s sometimes a slight delay).
Personally, I was shadowbanned for exactly 72 hours without knowing why, and it went away after 72 hours.
Rate limited happens when I open too many tabs on PC when I want to make offers.
You also need to be careful as soon as there has been a shadow ban, an account restriction, or even when using vacation mode. Indeed, sometimes ads can take time to be reactivated and I noticed that they no longer appeared in the tags or the search engine until a user made views and/or favorites. So don’t hesitate to use a second account to do this. It happened to me twice and it’s very annoying.
I am not a professional and I confirm: article visibility is very questionable. I sell a few highly specialized books and have practically no views, whereas previous ones on the same theme had a favorite within the first half hour.
In this post I explain why the search results are messed up.
Don’t stress about hashtags, they aren’t really the factor that matters on Vinted. I’ve actually removed almost all of mine. Saves time and makes things clearer.
Obviously, hashtags also served the purpose of an « internal search engine » for the seller (now there’s Clems, but also for the buyer).
For me, there are only 2 ways to do well on Vinted.
1 Like
Hello,
I had a similar problem recently and sent an email to Vinted « legal@vinted.fr » explaining that I was making fewer sales and that it wasn’t normal.
Here’s what they replied:
"Hello,
Thank you for your message. We are contacting you to inform you that your account has been blocked by mistake.
We strive to ensure maximum security on our platform, which sometimes leads us to mistakenly block certain accounts during routine checks. As part of these checks, we have to consider many factors: connections, multiple accounts, member behavior, etc. We make sure to take the time to carefully analyze each situation and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Please note that your account is now unblocked and you can continue to use Vinted.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Have a nice day,"
Following this, I made more sales and my number of favorites increased.
In summary, if you notice a drop in sales, fewer views, fewer impressions, fewer offers from buyers, and fewer favorites than usual, I advise you to send an email, it might solve your problem.
4 Likes
Thank you for your feedback!
I’ve been following the topic for a while without participating.
I am in the exact same situation as you were. Since March, no matter what I do on my account (professional with over 3000 listings/1800 followers), things haven’t changed and the situation has only worsened to a standstill currently.
I contacted legalvinted on 06/16 with no response from them, I followed up this weekend.
Do you know if Vinted took a long time to respond to you?
Isn’t it risky to ask Vinted to look at our visibility if we use Clemz? Won’t they risk focusing on sending messages to favorites, view requests, or reposts, which would bring worse than better?
I’m asking because I’m also very tempted to contact them, as my visibility is in free fall despite using « mises en vitrine » (showcase/featured items).
I doubt Vinted has a per-user dashboard to see every setting of their usage. And the views / re-publications / messages to favorites made by Clemz would not be impossible to do manually anyway, so it would be difficult for them to accuse you 100%
Regarding « rate limited, » for those who have it, it’s just a limit that Vinted has put on the number of items you can open per minute. To prevent overly strong exchanges of views… It is unlikely that having this « rate limited » would lead to a sanction or a shadow ban
A piece of advice I have for everyone who thinks they are shadow banned: download your Vinted data (link here) and check if you have had any reports from other Vinties.
Vinted tends to block people (and therefore perhaps shadow ban them?) if they are the subject of external reports.
You will be able to read the dates of the reports and their content (reason for the report). This could correspond with your dates of loss of visibility… to be verified!
3 Likes
They did not respond to the fact that my articles are not found from another account even with a highly targeted search, nor to the near absence of favorites…
Good evening.
I have read all the answers you propose and I am quite admiring of the approach.
I hate to play the conspiracy theorist, but the idea of having ups and downs, consciously caused by Vinted, wouldn’t surprise me that much. I have been a seller for 2 and a half years, currently with over €10,000 in sales/month for more than 6 months (€13k in May, around €55k since the beginning of the year), I also observe the same thing as you: 95% of the time, when people’s sales drop, it’s simply because they have reduced their number of posts by 20%, and their items are either out of season or less current. I am in contact with quite a few acquaintances who make €20k and more, and obviously researching niches, updating, and the number of posts/month is the basis. However, I would like to add a nuance. I think it’s rare to be as consistent as I have always been: I posted 5 items/day the first year, then 7, then 10/day for 6 months, then 15/day during Q4 2024 and finally 20/day for the last 3 months. I have noticed a huge drop in visibility, sales, and offers for 10 days. This has happened to me before but never to this extent. I used to appear on the first page for my flagship items, now I appear on the 4th, suddenly, for no reason. Shadow banning, just like a drop in visibility, is real, and for me, it is not systematically due to the logical reasons mentioned above. I track absolutely everything, and such a discrepancy is not possible. I am also blocked in many features: sending messages from the computer, opening more than 3 pages in a row, editing an ad… I think Vinted also rates accounts and devices, and when they detect too much automation, it becomes long and complicated to « clean up » an account. I have seen people create a new account for this reason and start again with their previous statistics. We are talking about people who sell €3k with their damaged account and start again at €10k with a new one. I’m digressing, but all this to say that the best thing would be to find together what damages accounts. I have noticed, for example, that re-posting strongly damages accounts. What do you think?
1 Like
Did you insist on this point? According to the person you’re talking to, some questions are TOTALLY missed.. 
I sent a second message but no response yet…