Charity shops should thank Vinted.

A year ago I wrote about how my daughters had changed the way I looked at charity shops.

They just saw them completely differently to me.

For them, buying #preloved wasn’t second best. It was normal. Platforms like Vinted and Depop had a lot to do with that, and I wonder if they’d actually done charity shops an enormous favour.

Vinted now has over 17 million users in the UK, while goods worth €10.8bn were sold through the platform globally last year.

Buying something someone else has owned has become normalised.

You can see it on the high street too. Save the Children UK’s retail sales increased by 3% in 2025, compared with 1.4% across charity retail.

Of course, there’s a downside.

A coat or handbag that might once have been a donation can now be photographed and sold from the kitchen table. Vinted is undoubtedly competing with charities for some of their best stock.

But it has also created a huge audience already comfortable with buying secondhand.

And in 2025, 42% of new Save the Children shop volunteers were aged 18–24, up from 28% in 2021.

That suggests something bigger is going on than people simply looking for cheaper clothes.

The mistake would be to conclude that charity shops need to become more like Vinted.

I think the opportunity is almost the opposite.

Online marketplaces are brilliant when you know what you’re looking for. A charity shop offers something different: discovery.

The jacket you weren’t expecting to find. The book you’d forgotten about. The CD you uncovered.

There’s also something more human about it.

Real people. Volunteers who know the stock, recognise regulars, have a chat or simply make the place feel part of the community.

As we often say at We Are Acuity, the more retail becomes automated and screen-based, the more valuable that human interaction becomes.

Last year I visited a newly opened East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH)’s boutique and was struck by just how far charity retail had moved on. It was bright, well presented and carefully merchandised.

But there’s a balance to strike. The rummage, and the possibility of finding something completely unexpected, is part of the experience. Just look at the number of ‘charity find’ videos on TikTok!

And then there’s something else Vinted can’t easily replicate.

#Purpose.

When you spend in a charity shop, you’re helping fund something worthwhile, often within the same communities those shops serve.

Resale sites have already done much of the hard work by helping make secondhand normal – even cool.

The opportunity for charity retailers now isn’t to copy it. It’s to make more of what they can’t offer: discovery, real people and a sense of purpose.