EU grapples with Vinted case as fake ‘Made in China’ goods evade controls with little Europe can do

Brussels – ‘Made in China’ goods and their counterfeit clothing are finding their way into European homes through loopholes in EU regulations that allow products from popular platforms to circumvent EU controls by shifting items to Vinted, from where they then flood the single market. Strange, yet true. Vinted, the popular Lithuanian website for buying and selling second-hand items that are no longer worn, is a peer-to-peer marketplace. It is not companies selling to consumers, but private individuals selling items in their wardrobes to one another.

From the European Parliament, however, MEP Dirk Gotink (EPP) denounces: “Much of the clothing offered for sale as second-hand designer clothing on the popular website Vinted is in fact counterfeit fast fashion originating from Chinese platforms such as Shein.“​​​ The Commission takes note, but can do little or nothing. Executive Vice-President for Technological Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, points out that the directive on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices prohibits traders from misleading consumers with false information about the product being sold, but the directive itself “applies only to business-to-consumer
transactions and therefore does not apply to transactions concluded solely between
consumers, which may occur on platforms such as Vinted when the seller acts as a private
individual.” 

So, Brussels acknowledges that it is possible to sell products on Vinted that do not originate from private individuals. In this specific case, one cannot even invoke the Digital Services Act (DSA), since, as things stand, “Vinted is not designated as a very large online platform,” as Virkkunen points out again in her response to the parliamentary question. This means that Vinted does not reach 45 million users per month, and this does not trigger European Commission controls, which remain at the national level. Not individual Member States, mind you: in this specific case, the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission clarifies further, “the Member state in which its main establishment is located in the
EU is competent to supervise and enforce the DSA against it.” It is therefore up to Lithuania to prevent Shein from circumventing EU rules via Vinted.