How to track your Vinted profit (spreadsheet or app)

Your Vinted balance tells you what came in. It doesn't tell you what you made, because it knows nothing about what you paid for the stock. If you resell, tracking profit is the only way to know which buys are worth repeating, and it's the record you'll need if you pass the £1,000 trading allowance.

What to record for each item

• What you paid, and where (charity shop, car boot, bundle). If you bought a bundle, split the cost across the items.
• Extra costs: cleaning, repairs, packaging, any postage you covered, and anything spent on Bumps or promotion.
• The date you listed it, so you can see what's going stale.
• What it sold for and when.

Vinted doesn't charge UK private sellers a selling fee; the buyer pays a Buyer Protection fee on top (see Vinted fees explained). So your sale price is what you receive.

A spreadsheet that works

One row per item, with these columns:

1. Item
2. Bought for (£)
3. Other costs (£)
4. Listed on (date)
5. Sold for (£), blank until it sells
6. Sold on (date)
7. Profit = Sold for − Bought for − Other costs
8. Margin = Profit ÷ Sold for
9. Return on cost = Profit ÷ Bought for
10. Days to sell = Sold on − Listed on

Add a total row for the tax year (6 April to 5 April) on the Sold for column. That's the income figure the trading allowance is measured against.

The numbers worth watching

• Margin tells you how much of each sale you keep. Resellers often aim for a target and price to it; the profit calculator works out the price for any margin.
• Return on cost tells you how hard your buying money works. A £2 shirt sold for £12 is a 500% return, even though the profit is only £10.
• Days to sell shows what moves. Stock that sits for months is cash you can't reuse.
• Unsold stock value: the total you paid for everything still listed.

Where spreadsheets break down

The weak point is typing. Every sale has to be copied across by hand, cancelled orders have to be spotted and removed, and a missed week leaves the totals quietly wrong. That's fine at ten sales a month and painful at a hundred.

That's the problem Vintally was built for: a Chrome extension syncs your Vinted sales, listings and balance automatically, and you only add what you paid. Profit, margin, stale listings and your trading-allowance total are worked out from there. If you'd rather stay with a spreadsheet, the columns above will serve you well.