Fashion · Channel report
What people complain about in Thrifting
WaveSeek read 1,389 public posts about Thrifting over 30 days and found 716 genuine complaints in them. Below are the ones that came up most, each linking to the post it was read from.
Measured 5 August 2026 · 4 distinct sources in the last 7 days · this page is rebuilt on every deploy
Daily mentions, 2026-07-22 → 2026-08-05. Peak 172 in a day.
Week over week, mentions moved -9%. A growth figure only appears here when it survives a baseline floor, a source-change check and a credibility ceiling — most channels most weeks show nothing, and that is the honest answer.
The evidence chain
Every complaint below came out of this. Nothing is estimated; each step is a count.
- 1,389posts ingested about Thrifting30-day window
- 1,383read by the classifier100% of them
- 716were genuine complaints52% of what was read
Mentions here exclude news wires and video titles: somebody reporting on Thrifting is not somebody having a problem with it. The Trends screen inside the app counts those too, because it measures attention rather than frustration — which is why the two numbers differ and why this page says which one it is using.
What people actually complain about
The 8 most frequent complaint clusters of 30 found, phrased by the classifier from the posts themselves. The links go to the original post — not to a summary of it.
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1
High marketplace commission fees
Poshmark — I love Poshmark but they take way too much of the money.
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2
Excessive intrusive ads in marketplace apps
Lots of adds — Lots of adds and they are annoying
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3
Unresponsive customer support for disputes
Terrible customer support — Had this app for about two weeks and really loved it, was getting alot of tracti…
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4
Frequent app crashes disrupting usage
Depop — The app crashes and closes out my tab on my phone all the time and it really annoying
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5
Forced unwanted homepage features with no opt-out
eBay Live — I hate it. Why is it now clogging my home page. There are other users who have no interest i…
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6
Lack of seller protection against buyer-initiated cancellations after shipment
Anna D — I will never use Vinted again. A buyer purchased my kids’ jackets, I printed the shipping label…
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7
Account suspension with no explanation or recourse
My experience with Depop has been extremely disappointing. My account was suspended without any clear explanation, and suppor…
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8
Removal of free shipping option
I absolutely love Depop but can you please bring back free shipping?!!
The count is over every post in the cluster. The links are a sample of them, capped at three, and never imply the list is complete.
Who is already there
6 apps measured in this channel from their own recent store reviews. Ratings are computed from the reviews WaveSeek ingested in the window, not read off a store listing.
| App | Rating | Reviews read | 4★ and up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vinted: Pre-loved marketplace | 4.3★ | 160 | 83% |
| Depop - Buy & Sell Clothes | 3.4★ | 114 | 52% |
| eBay online shopping & selling | 1.4★ | 82 | 2% |
| Poshmark: Shop & Sell Fashion | 3.5★ | 77 | 56% |
| ThredUp: Online Thrift Store | 4.6★ | 58 | 90% |
| Mercari: Buying & Selling App | 3.1★ | 56 | 50% |
Search demand
36,042 Google searches a month on average, from Google Ads keyword volume — the one number on this page you can check against a source that is not us.
Twelve months of monthly volume, ending 2026-06 for the keywords thrifting, secondhand clothes.
No clear seasonal pattern — the best and worst months differ by only 33% of a typical month.
What this page does not tell you
Four competitors in this category print a market size on a page like this one. We do not, because we cannot measure one: mention counts, complaint counts and search volume are not a market size, and a dollar figure built from them would be a guess wearing a decimal point. The same goes for revenue projections, customer demographics and funding comparables.
Everything above is a count of public posts and reviews over a stated window. It is evidence of what people said, not a prediction of what will sell.
See Thrifting change
This page is a snapshot. Inside WaveSeek the same channel is live: the complaint list is re-clustered every six hours, competitor ratings are tracked week over week, and saved ideas report what moved since you saved them.
Open WaveSeek — freeFree covers the measured numbers you just read. The paid tiers cover the interpretation.