The Free-Shipping War in Your Mailbox

A Lithuanian resale app backed by global investment funds is paying shipping costs to win American buyers, and the Postal Service is one of its carriers.

By Richthrax · Oct. 25, 2026

Vinted, a used-clothing app based in Lithuania, is spending heavily to break into the U.S. market. Much of that money goes to shipping.

Sellers on Vinted pay no selling fees and get a prepaid label when an item sells, according to the company's U.S. Help Center. Buyers pay for shipping at checkout. The Help Center lists three U.S. carriers: the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and SpeedX.

The current offer

Vinted's U.S. shipping terms, in a Help Center page last updated Oct. 9, give new buyers free shipping on their first three purchases and new sellers free shipping on their first three sales. After that, the page says, prices vary by carrier, package size, distance and order value, and the exact price appears at checkout.

Orders sent to a Vinted Go shop through SpeedX, Vinted's delivery partner, ship free, according to the same page.

The Oct. 9 page lists no dollar amounts. When Vinted moved to variable prices on Sept. 25, USPS and FedEx labels started at $0.99 for small and medium packages and $3.19 for large ones, while SpeedX home delivery cost $0.49 to $1.49, Value Added Resource, an industry news site, reported.

How the offer changed

Vinted offered rates around $2 before broad free shipping began in early March, according to Value Added Resource. On Aug. 27, Vinted said qualifying orders would ship "either free or $0.99," the site reported. Around Sept. 24, some buyers saw prices rise to between $1.99 and $3.99.

Depop, a rival app now owned by eBay, ran its own promotions, including free shipping in May and $0.99 shipping on qualifying purchases under $10 beginning Sept. 16, Value Added Resource reported. Depop's sale is covered in this week's companion story.

Mercari, another resale app, credited shipping promotions with helping its U.S. results for the fiscal year that ended in June, Value Added Resource reported. Mercari said it would raise its USPS Ground Advantage label prices at many weights on Oct. 19, citing "rising carrier costs," the site reported.

Who owns Vinted

Vinted was founded in 2008 in Vilnius, Lithuania, by Milda Mitkutė and Justas Janauskas, according to Tech.eu. It is privately held.

On April 27, Vinted announced a €880 million sale of existing shares that valued the company at €8 billion, about $9.4 billion, Tech.eu and The Next Web reported. No new money went to the company. The sale gave existing shareholders and employees a chance to cash out part of their stakes.

EQT led the deal, according to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, whose Teachers' Venture Growth arm bought in. Other new investors included Schroders Capital, BlackRock funds, Lombard Odier Investment Managers and Pinegrove Opportunity Partners. Existing investor Baillie Gifford increased its position.

Earlier backers include Accel, Insight Partners and Lightspeed, and TPG led an October 2024 share sale at a €5 billion valuation, The Next Web reported.

Thomas Plantenga is group CEO; Adam Jay runs the marketplace. Vinted calls itself "IPO-ready" but has set no timetable, The Next Web reported.

The U.S. push

Vinted has offered its app in the United States since 2013 but had a small U.S. customer base, FashionUnited reported in January. In late 2025 it tested trades between U.K. and U.S. users.

In January, Vinted began a U.S. expansion starting in New York. Plantenga told The Wall Street Journal, "This is not a preliminary test. This is a full-scale test," according to LRT, Lithuania's public broadcaster. The company budgeted "tens of millions of dollars" for U.S. operations this year, LRT reported.

Jay said in June that high shipping costs were the company's biggest U.S. challenge, The Next Web reported.

Members traded €10.8 billion of goods on Vinted in 2025, up 47 percent, FashionUnited reported. Revenue rose 38 percent to €1.1 billion, while net profit fell 19 percent to €62 million amid spending on expansion.

Vinted's own delivery network

In Europe, Vinted runs its own delivery arm, Vinted Go. It operates in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, opened a sorting center in France and works with more than 500,000 pickup and drop-off points, according to FashionUnited.

In the United States, Vinted Go shops are local businesses that accept parcels, which travel with SpeedX and Better Trucks, according to PostUp Mail, an independent shipping store in the network. Ohio was not among the nine states where Vinted Go was live, according to PostUp Mail's guide, last updated Sept. 27: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. The Despoiler could not find a newer published list.

The Postal Service's package business

In the quarter that ended June 30, shipping and package revenue rose 7.7 percent to $8.25 billion while volume fell 3.4 percent, the agency reported Aug. 7. It credited continued growth in USPS Ground Advantage.

In the previous quarter, which ended March 31, Ground Advantage revenue rose 19.8 percent from a year earlier, according to an analysis by Gray Hair Software.

Shipping and package volume fell 5.7 percent in fiscal 2025, Supply Chain Dive reported. For fiscal 2026, which ended Sept. 30, the Postal Service projected package revenue would rise 9.4 percent while total mail and package volume fell 6.6 percent. Full-year results have not been released.

Imports also shifted when the U.S. ended the de minimis exemption for packages worth under $800 on Aug. 29, 2025. More than two dozen foreign postal operators paused U.S.-bound shipments as the rule ended, USA Today reported.

Postage keeps rising

Ground Advantage prices rose about 7.8 percent on Jan. 18, according to Stamps.com. A temporary 8 percent increase on domestic shipping, including Ground Advantage, took effect April 26 and runs through Jan. 17, 2027.

On July 12, commercial Ground Advantage prices for packages under a pound rose an average of 11.8 percent as the Postal Service dropped its lightest price tiers, TransImpact reported, citing Supply Chain Dive. Temporary holiday increases of 40 cents to $7.70 on Ground Advantage began Oct. 4 and also run through Jan. 17, Stamps.com reported.

Key dates

The editor of The Despoiler works for the U.S. Postal Service.