What to sell on Vinted in October and November: a UK guide

By October the British weather stops being negotiable. September lets you get away with a light jacket; a month later you need a jumper, shoes that survive a wet pavement, and soon a proper coat. On Vinted that produces a particular kind of buyer: one who wants a specific item in their size and pays as soon as it turns up.

October and November are two different months, though. October is about layering, the half-term break and Halloween. November starts with fireworks on a cold field and ends with everyone planning December. This guide goes through what sells in the UK across both months, when demand arrives for each category, and when to relist what you already have online.

What late autumn changes for a Vinted seller

To begin with, the weather makes the decision. Nobody buys a coat in advance: they buy it the week they get soaked at the school gate or shiver on a station platform. So demand moves in jolts: the first wet week, then the first cold mornings, then the first frost. The seller whose listing is already up that day gets the sale; the one who digs the coat out that evening joins the back of the queue.

Then the British calendar packs three fixed points into a short stretch. The October half-term is a week off that, for most schools in England and Wales, falls at the end of the month, with dates that vary by council and come earlier in much of Scotland: it is when families go through the wardrobes and kit the children out for winter. Halloween on the 31st has become a real event for families here. And Bonfire Night on 5 November sends people outdoors after dark, where they find out what their winter wardrobe is missing.

And the light goes. Once the clocks go back at the end of October, it is dark by the time you get home from work, and a navy coat photographed under a single bulb shows neither its colour nor its fabric. That need not hold a listing up: Pikmatic’s photo enhancement (three photos free, then sold in packs) gives the cover photo an even, studio-style light and a plain backdrop. The details are further down.

October: layering, then the first warm pieces

The start of the month still belongs to in-between pieces. Demand for them is the shortest-lived of the season, so they come first when you sort.

Jackets, trench coats and macs

The trench, the mac, the leather or faux-leather jacket, the suede bomber, the heavy overshirt, the quilted gilet, the waxed jacket. Anything that goes over a jumper while the weather is damp rather than freezing. Put the fabric and the cut in the title (“long belted trench”, “cropped leather jacket”): someone looking for an in-between jacket already has a shape in mind.

Knitwear, from cardigans to chunky jumpers

Cardigans, fine-knit jumpers and thin roll necks sell on the first chilly days because they fit under a jacket. Chunky knits, heavy wool jumpers and long cardigans take over from mid-October. For all knitwear, the composition matters as much as the brand.

• Photograph the composition label: lambswool, merino, cashmere, alpaca and cotton are all searched for by name
• Show the knit up close, elbows and underarms included, and mention any bobbling
• Say whether the jumper has shrunk or stretched in the wash, with the length measured flat

Ankle boots and closed shoes

Leather ankle boots, lace-up boots, brogues, loafers and high-tops replace canvas trainers after the first downpour. Condition is everything in this category: clean the leather, polish it, and photograph the sole and the heel, because that is where a buyer goes looking for wear. The UK size goes in the title, with a note if the style comes up small or large.

Coats: online before the cold, not during it

A coat is often the most valuable thing in a wardrobe, and it repays some preparation: a trip to the dry cleaner or at least a firm brush, buttons sewn back on, the zip tested, the pockets emptied.

Not every coat is searched for at the same time. Wool coats, pea coats and lighter styles find buyers from mid-October. Thick puffers, padded parkas and lined boots are mostly wanted from the end of the month, and the days before Bonfire Night bring a small rush of their own, since an evening spent standing outdoors in November is a thorough test of a wardrobe. Either way, list them as soon as they are ready: the listing will be in place on the first cold morning, and all you have to do that day is relist it.

Buyers ask three things about a coat before anything else: what it is made of, how long it is and how wide it is across the shoulders. Answer them in the listing with the composition label, the back length and the shoulder width measured flat. It saves a lot of messages, and a lot of disappointment when the parcel is opened.

Children: half-term and the next size up

Six weeks into term, parents know what is missing. Last winter’s coat stops halfway down the forearm, the school trousers bought in August show the ankles, and the school shoes are already a size behind. Half-term finally gives them a free week to deal with it.

For you, this is the moment to clear out the wardrobe of a child who has grown. What sells best: coats and puffers, waterproof jackets, puddle suits, wellies, jumpers, fleece-lined trousers, warm pyjamas, hats and gloves. Put the age in the title (“age 5-6”), since that is the first filter parents use, and group the small pieces into single-size bundles.

Put these listings up now, then relist them as half-term approaches: families going away for the week order before they pack, and the ones staying at home want the children warm for the fireworks a few days later.

Halloween: a three-week window

A child’s costume is the ideal second-hand purchase: worn for one evening, outgrown by the following year. Halloween is now a fixture for British families, with trick-or-treating, school discos and parties, and in Scotland the older tradition of guising, so the demand is real. But it has an end date that nothing can move. A parcel that arrives on 2 November is no use to anyone.

List without waiting. After the third week of October, the time you need to pack and the courier needs to deliver leaves too little margin, and a careful parent stops risking an online order. In the listing, say everything that is included, because a costume without its hat or its cape is a let-down when the bag is opened.

A costume still unsold after the 31st can stay online. If it is a character from a book, relist it ahead of World Book Day in early March, when schools ask children to dress up; otherwise it gets its turn again next October.

November: what to have online now for December

By November the cold has settled in and coats keep selling. The job for the month is to have online, now, what buyers will be looking for in a few weeks.

Party outfits

Sequin dresses, velvet blazers, satin skirts, suits, heels worn once. Work Christmas parties start well before Christmas itself, and someone with a date in the diary wants time to try the outfit on. List these as soon as they are photographed: demand climbs in the second half of November, and that is when you relist them. Write the occasion in the title (“Christmas party dress”, “New Year’s Eve outfit”), because those are the words buyers type.

What makes a good second-hand present

Whatever came out of the children’s bedrooms over half-term can go online straight away: complete toys, board games whose pieces you have counted, books in very good condition. People buying presents start looking in mid-November, and so do buyers of Christmas jumpers, which schools and offices ask for on Christmas Jumper Day in December: relist what is already up at that point. Someone buying a gift wants reassurance on two things, that the item is complete and that it is clean. Say so in the description.

Warm accessories and ski wear

Scarves, hats and gloves sell all month, singly or as a small matching set. Skiing is a minority pursuit in Britain, yet the families who go during the February half-term start looking in November, and a child’s ski suit worn for a single week last winter is exactly what they want instead of buying new every year.

The demand calendar for October and November

September and the return to school are covered in our guide to what sells on Vinted at the start of autumn. Here is what comes next: for each part of the month, what buyers start looking for, and therefore what to relist among the listings you already have up.

All of it can be online today: the calendar tells you which week to relist what. For the day and the hour, our article on the best time to post on Vinted picks up where this one leaves off.

What sells less in late autumn

Some categories are at the low point of their year. That is no reason to leave them in a box: a live listing costs nothing, and a few buyers always remain, the one flying somewhere warm in January or the one planning ahead. List them as soon as they are ready, like everything else.

• Sandals, swimwear, shorts and light dresses: low demand until spring; relist on the first warm days
• Light jackets and trench coats: demand drops off after mid-October and returns in March
• School uniform and back-to-school kit: demand has fallen away since September and picks up again over the summer holidays
• Halloween costumes: after the 31st, the next occasion is World Book Day for book characters, then next autumn

There is no point slashing the price of these listings in November: it is the season holding them back, not the price. You will relist them when their moment comes round again.

List everything now, relist at the right moment

The method has two steps. First, put everything that is ready online, without sorting by season or watching for a date: a live listing can sell, a draft cannot. Then relist each item the week demand for it rises, following the calendar above. A coat listed in early October and still there in November is not necessarily overpriced: it has more likely slid down the results as newer listings arrived, and relisting brings it back in front of buyers just as the cold sends them searching. Pikmatic’s repost feature makes relisting easy, which removes any reason to hold your listings back.

Photos no longer depend on the time of day or the weather. Take them when you can, even on a November evening: Pikmatic’s photo enhancement reworks the cover photo, the one a buyer sees first, with a clean background, studio light and the item straight and centred. You compare the original and the enhanced photo before you publish, check that the labels and details still match the real item, and keep the original if you prefer. For the other photos in the listing, our guide to photographing clothes without any equipment still applies.

If you prepare all your listings in one sitting, you can schedule them to publish automatically so that they go out one after another without taking up your evening; scheduled publishing, at a time you choose, is part of the Pro and Business plans. And if your autumn wardrobe runs to dozens of pieces, our guide to running a Vinted shop with a lot of items explains how to keep stock, listings and parcels in order.

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