Exposing Vestiaire Collective's Hidden cost: currency conversion fees
, by Jiaxin He, 2 min reading time
Update on 11 June 2024
Starting 1 May 2024, Vestiaire Collective has come up with a very confusing way of charging buyers: the Buyer Service fee. They replaced the previous "currency conversion fees" with additional "Buyer Service fees".
| Buyer Location |
Buyer Service Fees Same Currency |
Buyer Service Fees Foreign Currency |
| UK | 15% | 20% |
| Rest of the World | 10% | 20% |
A minimum of £5 Buyer Service fee will be applied
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Do you know you are paying 12.5% extra if you buy on Vestiaire Collective from a seller in another country on, without Vestiaire even telling you?
Deeply hidden under the FAQ on Vestiaire Collective's site is a puzzling policy stating:
"Where the price of the item is viewed in a currency that is different from the seller's listing currency, the displayed price will be inclusive of a currency conversion charge payable by the buyer." Fair enough because all payment companies charge a currency conversion fees between 1-5%, but I kid you not Vestiaire charges an exorbitant cost of 12.5%!
What that means is for example if I'm in the US, and I see a bag that I really love on sale from a seller in France that's asking for 2600 Euros. If I'm using USD, I will be seeing a price of $3164 USD, that's equivalent of 2950 Euros, 13.5% higher than the asking price.
The seller doesn't even get the extra money, but who does? well you guessed it, Vestiaire Collective itself.
If you want to avoid paying the extra, it is always wise to change your site currency to the same currency as the seller's. You can find the country where the seller is from in the "details" section under a product listing. If you are unsure what currency the seller uses, just ask her in the chat. Whenever the price is not a whole number, like $3164.85 in the previous case, that should sound the alarm that you are being over charged.
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Comments
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I did not realize that not only am I paying the currency change fee that is well over a reasonable charge but Vestiaire also charges a buyers fee. While that is nice for the sellers, of which I am one, it makes buying on Vestiaire almost a scam because of all the (almost) hidden fees. Recently, Vestiare is not charging sellers a commission, only the 3 percent to send payment via PayPal or bank transfer or however they send money. They have lowered prices of sellers items on site to account for the lowered commissions, so the seller does not really benefit from the lowered commission. Vestiaier has resorted to getting buyers to basically pay commissions. They say buyers are protected from fraud, but we have seen how they do not back this up. Unfortunately, Poshmark charges sellers 21% or more commission …
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Thank you for bringing this to light. I’ve been a user of Vestiaire for a while now, and I had no idea about these charges!!! I’m glad that you’ve done the research and made this public. I’ll be sure to share it with my friends and family…. 😡
