Parents shopping for pre-loved kids’ clothing now have another place to do it in Chicago.
Vinted Kids debuted in Chicago this month, and you can find everything from clothing to baby toys and even some larger items like strollers, riding toys and even cribs on the site, vintedkids.com.
It’s essentially a blend of Thredup and Craigslist because you can opt to have your smaller items shipped, or you can pick up your larger local goods. There also are elements of The Knot tied into it, because there are community forums as well.
Vinted Kids picked Chicago as its first North American market, believing that our solid Midwestern values will show when it comes to buying quality used kids’ stuff.
It’s simple to find items nearby (the app makes great use of geo-targeting) and with just two clicks, the item you want is yours. “We want to make it as easy as possible,” says Vinted Kids’ Gunes Seyfarth, while visiting Chicago Parent’s offices recently.
I’d recommend the mobile app over using the website, as it is much more user-friendly. When I first attempted to use Vinted Kids on a computer, it took a few tries to figure out how to search.
Once you get a user name and a password, you can search by gender and type of item (I was looking for a dress for a girl), but I couldn’t figure out how to search only for in a size 7, so had to look through a few pages.
I eventually figured it out and they do have some cute items with labels ranging from Old Navy to Matilda Jane. The mobile app is much more straight-forward, and it’s simple to navigate and search for what you need.
Kristin Cheuvront, co-founder of Little Style File, is the community ambassador for Vinted Kids.
“It’s a lot more personal, you can follow people and there is also a community,” she says about Vinted, which aims to offer a much more intimate sales experience, almost like swapping clothing with a friend.
Right now, the group of friends on the site is quite small, with only about 1,000 items for sale total, throughout all the categories.
But Cheuvront says their inventory should be expanding soon, since the company is hosting playdates and doing Meetups throughout Chicago to get more people involved.
Those looking to sell can list their items for free; Vinted Kids takes 15 percent of the listed price as its commission. However, as the app gets off the ground, the seller fees are currently zero percent so it’s a great time to try it out.
Vinted Kids is launching in more cities throughout Europe and will be getting off the ground in Texas as well. While parents can’t shop for the bigger items worldwide, they can buy clothing from any location since it can be shipped anywhere for a flat fee (buyers pay a flat fee for small or medium boxes ranging from $3.59-$6.99).
Happy shopping!
