How It Works: Buying & Selling Designer Handbags On Vestiaire Collective

What Is Vestiaire Collective?

Vestiaire Collective is the leading online marketplace to BUY and SELL, they have a huge array of brands to shop from, Chanel, Hermes, Gucci and so much more. Every day more than 3,000 new items are uploaded from brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Isabel Marant, Celine and so many more and in total, there is approximately around 300,000 items on Vestiaire Collective at any one time. This is the internet go-to source for pre-loved and vintage designer items, but as a platform, it’s still a little miss-understood so I wanted to chat about how it works if you are a buyer, or a sell. Let’s GO!

How To Sell Designer Items At Vestiaire Collective

So firstly, you wanna head to the Vestiaire Collective website and go to their Selling Page. Here you will find a super easy-to-use form which will guide you through giving all the relevant information to sell your item. Information needed includes description, condition, price and photos. It’s very straight forward and actually really quick and easy. Once you have done this, your submission will be approved by the team at Vestiaire Collective and then your listing will go live (usually within 24 hours). VC have a community of 4 million fashion lovers worldwide, so as long as the price is right, it’s only a matter of time before you find your buyer and once you do, you ship your item for free to the Vestiaire Collective HQ where it will be checked over and beautifully packaged to be sent to the buyer. Payments are made on the 15th and 30th of each month, so if you sell your Chanel bag on the 17th May, you will be paid on the 30th May.

Vestiaire Collective Commission

OK, so I’m not gonna lie, the Vestiaire Collective commission structure is kinda confusing, well to me anyway! There’s a whole page about it here, so please do wander over and have a look. Basically, you can list as much as you want for free and you will only pay commission if you sell the item. Everyone pays an 18euro fee (think of this as an admin charge) and then your commission is worked out on top. Now the commission rates vary, for instance, the lifestyle items have a slightly higher commission to the fashion items, and then the commission rates also vary depending on how much the item sells for and it’s worked out as a percentage (like the way your tax is worked out). I strongly recommend you do check this page to find out more, but for most items, I would say to estimate a ballpark commission of around 25-35% of the selling price. Admittedly it is wayyyyyy higher than Ebay fees, which are usually around 10% of the selling price (unless you get super lucky and you are offered a £1 maximum sellers fee deal one weekend), but don’t let this put you off, as the Ebay customers are very price conscious and often very distrusting of fakes so bidders are often far less willing to pay for higher priced designer items. Where as the Vestiaire Collective are designer enthusiasts and because authenticity is guaranteed, which it isn’t on eBay, you are likely to get a far higher price for your item, without any of the fear of having oodles of watches which don’t bid on your item and you sell it for lower than you are happy with / expected. The only way your item can be bought for a lesser price on Vestiaire Collective is if a buyer ‘makes an offer’ and you accept a lower price for it.

How To Buy Designer Items At Vestiaire Collective

So, let’s chat about buying designer items at Vestiaire Collective and firstly, I want to clear up a hugeeeeee miss-conception about Vestiaire Collective. Much like on eBay, the sellers at Vestiaire Collective shoot, describe and rate the condition of the items, however, unlike eBay, all sales are check by the Vestiaire Collective before they go live, they are looking out for fakes and discrepancies in the description and condition compared to the photos submitted. However, once the item is bought, the product is not sent directly from the seller to the buyer, instead it’s sent to the Vestiaire Collective HQ to be thoroughly checked and authenticated before it is sent to the buyer. All items at Vestiaire Collective are authenticity guaranteed, as well as matched up against the description and condition rating given by the seller. If there is any doubt over the authenticity of the item, the buyer will get a notification that the order has been cancelled. If discrepancies are found, Vestiaire Collective will step in and either negotiate a new price or ask the buyer if they want to cancel the sale. Don’t believe me?! It happened to a friend, she ordered an item and a few weeks later she got an email saying her order had been canceled because they could not authenticate the item.

Can I Return An Item To Vestiaire Collective?

Yes and No! If you have bought your item from a Individual Seller, the no, you will have to re-list the item on Vestiaire Collective and sell it on yourself. If you are buying an item from a Professional Seller you can return the item, but you have to do it within 14 and you must keep the Vestiaire Collective on the item. Please be aware that if you do buy an item from a private seller and you instantly re-list the item on Vestiaire Collective to sell it on, then you will need to take into account the commission fees (see above) which could leave you with a hefty loss on a mistake purchase. I don’t wanna scare you, I just want you to be aware! You can find out if the seller is a Individual Seller or a Professional Seller by scrolling down to the seller information and it will say right underneath their name.

Too Many Clothes, Too Little Time?

Want to know what celebrities do with their old clothes? I’m guessing this! The Vestiaire Collective Concierge Service. Basically if you have a whole heap of amazing items to get rid of, then they can provide an end-to-end service for you. Commission is marginally higher (but I had a look and it’s hardly anything considering the time and effort you will save). All you have to do is ship the items and they will do the rest for you. It sounds like a dream come true! Send them an email of the items you want to sell and an account manager will be able to chat to you and you can ask all the questions you want about commission and pricing you want and go from there.

Resale calculator

Possibly one of favourite functions of the website; the resale calculator. Just click a few buttons and it will automatically tell you a guide price of what you should sell your item for. It’s pretty handy! FYI, if you have a handbag you don’t want to sell, but you do want to know what it’s worth, this is a really good place to check it’s current value.

Authenticity

I’ve talked about this above, but I’m going to chat about it again as it’s such an important issue. There are SO many fake designer items out there and it can be so hard to spot them. There is so many myths around the topic, for instance, some people believe that Chanel handbags are only made in France and anything marked ‘Made in Italy’ must be a fake – WRONG! Others (including me in the past!) assume that anything vintage must be real, but again, WRONG! Some fakes are designed to look and feel vintage to throw buyers of the scent, additionally, factories have been making fakes for decades now, this isn’t a new problem. Whilst there is always a temptation to take a gamble on an second-hand designer item which you *think* is real, it’s rarely worth the gamble as if that item is fake, it’s not a bargain, it’s a waste! So unless you know exactly what you are doing and you are a professional authenticator yourself, always buy your pre-loved items from a store / website / auction house which will guarantee the items’ authenticity. Also, it’s worth remembering, you can always pay a little extra for an independent authenticator to check the item over, just if you want extra piece of mind or you have an item in your wardrobe which you are sceptical of it’s origin.

Discount Code

So first of all, I have a referral code for you, if you sign up using this link, you will instantly get £15 credit to spend on your first purchase. If you have any problems with this, please do comment below with your email address and I will send you the link via email instead.

♥

Phew! I think that’s everything! I hope this post was helpful, I have been meaning to write it for a while as Vestiaire Collective do have some AMAZING items on their platform, but at the same time, it’s quite an unusual business model and at times a little understood so I wanted to share some more information. Also, this post is completely independent of Vestiaire Collective, it’s not an advert for them, I just wanted to share some information with my fellow label hunters! Let me know if you have any questions and I’ve linked a load of items below from Vestiaire Collective which I think are super nice!

Go Shopping!