Vinted Item Condition Guide: How to Grade Your Items

Vinted's condition labels look self-explanatory. They are not, and sellers who treat them as obvious make the most grading errors.

New with tags means the item has never been worn and the original retail tags are physically attached. Not "barely worn." Not "washed once but pristine." If the tags are gone, the item is not New with tags, regardless of how perfect it looks. This label carries the highest price coefficient (1.20 to 1.30 times median) precisely because it signals zero buyer risk.

Like new covers items worn once or twice with zero visible signs of wear. No pilling, no fading, no pulling on seams. If you need to qualify it with "almost like new" or "like new apart from," it is not Like new. It is Very good.

Very good is the most honest label for items worn several times and cared for properly. Minor wear is acceptable here, but it must be disclosed. A Very good item prices at 95 to 100 percent of median.

Good covers regular use with visible but not severe wear: light pilling, minor fading, small marks. The price coefficient drops to 0.80 to 0.85. Buyers expect imperfection at this label and they are usually fine with it, as long as you show them exactly what they are getting.

Fair is for items with heavy wear, staining, repairs, or significant fading. The coefficient sits at 0.65 to 0.75. A Fair item listed without photos of its flaws will generate a dispute. A Fair item listed with honest photography and a clear description will find a buyer who actively wants a project piece or a cheap functional garment.

The grading error that kills sales most often: sellers default to one label above where the item actually sits. A Good item listed as Very good triggers "item not as described" complaints. Be specific rather than generous with your grading.

A condition label tells a buyer the tier. The description is evidence. Treat it as documentation, not marketing copy.

Start with the factual core: brand, specific colour (not just "blue" but "cobalt blue"), fabric composition from the label, and precise measurements. Chest, waist, length in centimetres rather than just the size label, because a size 12 from one brand is not a size 12 from another. Buyers who ask for measurements before purchasing are buyers who almost never dispute afterwards.

Then state the wear history specifically. "Worn twice" is useful. "Worn approximately eight times over two winters, washed cold, no tumble drying" is better. It answers the buyer's mental checklist before they need to ask. Professional listers in 2026 consistently point to one habit that reduces message volume and speeds up conversions: answer the buyer's likely questions before they ask.

For any flaw, name it and reference the photo. "Light pilling on the left cuff visible in photo 4." "Small ink mark on inner hem, approximately 2mm, see photo 6." This approach (photo plus text) is your protection if a buyer disputes the item's condition. Vinted's resolution team looks at both your description and your photos. If the flaw is in both places, the dispute does not go against you.

Drop the filler words. "Amazing condition," "must see," and "beautiful" tell a buyer nothing and read as compensation for something that was not photographed properly. Write what the item is, not how you feel about it.

Finally, price with a buffer. Because 73 percent of buyers on Vinted negotiate, add 8 to 12 percent above your target price. This protects your margin without making the listing uncompetitive.

There is no confirmed data showing that 44 percent of unsold listings have blurry or poorly lit photos. This figure is unverified. That number is not surprising once you understand what buyers are actually doing when they view a listing: they are trying to spot what the seller is hiding. A dark or blurry photo reads as concealment, not laziness.

Use natural daylight. Window light, not direct sun, gives you colour accuracy that artificial indoor lighting cannot match. A navy jacket photographed under a warm bulb looks black. Buyers who receive a black jacket when they expected navy open disputes.

Follow a consistent four-shot sequence for every listing. Hero front shot on a hanger or flat-lay. Back and side view. Label or detail shot showing brand tag, care instructions, and size. Close-up of every flaw, even minor ones. If an item has no flaws, include a fourth shot of the fabric texture to demonstrate condition rather than leaving the slot empty.

For the flaw shot, get close enough that the imperfection fills at least 30 percent of the frame. A distant shot of pilling is not evidence. A sharp close-up that shows the texture and extent of pilling is.

Tools like VintyLook exist for generating realistic "worn" photos from flat-lay images at around €0.14 per credit, which is worth considering if your photography setup is limited. But no AI photo tool replaces an honest close-up of a real flaw. Use technology for presentation, not for obscuring condition.

The payoff for good photography is not just fewer disputes. Listings with clear condition evidence move more quickly because buyers trust what they can see.

The right price for any Vinted item is not the original retail price divided by two. It is not whatever feels fair. It is the median price of confirmed sold listings for that exact item, adjusted by the condition coefficient.

Start by searching Vinted for your item and filtering to view sold listings, not active ones. Active listings show what sellers hope to get. Sold listings show what buyers actually paid. The gap between those two numbers is often 20 to 30 percent, and always in the same direction.

Once you have your median, apply the coefficient: 1.20 to 1.30 for New with tags, 1.05 to 1.10 for Like new, 0.95 to 1.00 for Very good, 0.80 to 0.85 for Good, 0.65 to 0.75 for Fair. A jacket with a median sold price of £40 in Very good condition sits at £38 to £40. The same jacket in Good condition sits at £32 to £34.

Add your negotiation buffer on top. For items under £50, psychological pricing that ends in .99 improves conversion. £33.99 outperforms £34.00 in click-through on lower-price items.

If an item is not selling after 7 to 14 days, lower the price by 5 to 10 percent or relist it to reset its visibility in the algorithm. Do not relist without reviewing the photos first. A price cut on a listing with bad images does not fix the problem.

Tracking this data across multiple items manually gets messy fast. Vinta is built for Vinted sellers and handles per-item profit tracking, margin calculations, and inventory management in one place rather than across multiple spreadsheets. At £49 for a lifetime license, it removes the overhead of rebuilding calculations every time you sell a batch of items.

Four grading errors come up repeatedly and all of them are avoidable.

Optimistic grading. Listing a Good item as Very good because it looks fine to you is the fastest way to train your buyers to distrust your listings. One disputed sale for optimistic grading affects your reviews and your future conversion rate. Grade down when in doubt.

Photographing flaws from too far away. A macro shot of the actual defect is evidence. A wide shot of the item with the flaw somewhere in it is not. Buyers will ask for closer photos, which slows the sale, or they will assume the worst and move on.

Omitting measurements. Size labels are not standardised across brands or across decades. A vintage size 14 can be a modern size 10. Sellers who include chest, waist, and length in centimetres for every garment receive fewer questions and fewer returns.

Mispricing condition tiers relative to each other. Pricing a Good item at the same level as a Very good item does not make the Good item look better quality. It makes the listing look confused and buyers pass. Each tier needs to be priced visibly lower than the one above it to signal honest grading.

For sellers managing more than ten to fifteen active listings, tracking which condition tier each item is in, what price you set, and what the margin looks like becomes a real administrative burden. Vinta's inventory management and profit analysis features are designed for exactly this: seeing your full Vinted store in one view rather than opening each listing individually. You can see more about managing stock across active listings in our guide to Vinted inventory management.

Sellers avoid the Fair label as if it signals failure. It does not. It signals honesty, and honest listings in the Fair tier find buyers who want them.

Fair condition items attract buyers who need a functional item at a low price point, crafters who want fabric or components, students furnishing their first flat, parents buying clothes for children who will outgrow them in three months. These buyers know exactly what they want and a well-described Fair listing converts faster than a dishonestly graded Good one.

The key to selling Fair condition items is specificity. "Heavy wear" is not a description. "Fading across the back panel, two 1cm marks on the right sleeve visible in photos 3 and 4, seam on left shoulder repaired but holding well" is a description. Buyers who accept that description and still purchase will not dispute the item on arrival because they already agreed to those exact conditions.

Price Fair items firmly within the 0.65 to 0.75 coefficient range. Do not discount them further to compensate for poor photos or vague descriptions. A well-photographed, well-described Fair item priced at the correct coefficient tier will sell. A vaguely described one at a lower price will not, because buyers price in the uncertainty.

For sellers regularly moving Fair condition stock, tracking the acquisition cost against the sale price at this tier is where margins get tight. Per-item profit tracking matters most at the bottom of the condition range, which is exactly where tools like Vinta earn their keep.