Introduction

Vinted is a popular second-hand marketplace where users are responsible for managing their own sales, including shipping sold items within a given deadline. However, the app’s current notification system makes it difficult for sellers to track what requires immediate action. Important updates—such as confirming a sale or retrieving a shipping label—are often mixed in with general messages, leading to confusion and missed shipments.
From personal experience as a seller, I found it frustrating to navigate notifications and messages when trying to fulfill orders. At one point, I stopped using the app entirely, only to return later and find my account filled with negative feedback from disappointed buyers. This highlights a critical issue: if sellers struggle to manage their sales, they may abandon the platform, negatively affecting both buyers and Vinted itself.
This case study explores how Vinted’s notification system could be improved to provide sellers with more clear, action-driven updates—helping them stay on top of their transactions, avoid unnecessary frustration, and ultimately improve the overall marketplace experience.

My assumption regarding problem with notifications

In an app where the registered users are responsible for successful delivery it is crucial to help them as much as possible otherwise both the seller and the buyer can be hurt.
I experienced from the seller part that it is very hard to track if I sold something and need to ship it at a given deadline or I just got messages about a product. That caused me to simply stop using Vinted and a year later when I wanted to buy something and open the app, I was full of negative feedback and sad possible buyers. Simply stopping using an app shouldn’t affect the state of the user’s rank because it harms the later intention to use the app and instead of having some returned users they simply leave.
I remember back then when I really sold some items, I was so confused at the post office during shipping them, it wasn’t so easy to get the correct shipment labels from the messages. I wasn’t sure which one connected to which items and I was afraid that I was missing some of them.

My uncertainity with vinted notifications from a ux perspective

Research

I conducted a Secondary Research in form of a User-Generated Content Analysis and was looking for user’s reviews and complaints about the sellers’ perspectives regarding notifications. I found several complaints but my top finding within the notification complaint area was on Reddit.

What is going on with the Vinted interface and why must they make it so hard to use?! (No personal info) VENT Why oh why can’t Vinted create an interface that makes it easy to manage transactions! As a seller I want to be able to easily: -track items where I’ve been made an offer and filter whether I have responded to the offer or not -track items where I have been asked a question and filter on whether I have responded -see a list of everyone who has favourited an item -and MOST IMPORTANTLY have a clear list of items I’ve sold, be able to filter based on stage of sale and sort by date Recently they seemed to have made progress by separating orders by sales and purchases which is surely the absolute bare minimum - and I just logged on to find overnight this has DISAPPEARED and I am back to having a single list under “my orders” which jumbled up sales and purchases with no mechanism to filter. URGH. Why?!
ariadawn • 9mo ago Yeah, as a new buyer and seller, it’s really confusing to not be able to separate my seller messages from my buyer messages. Upvote 13 Downvote Award Share Share u/Pale-Cat9258 avatar Pale-Cat9258 OP • 9mo ago Also the separation of “messages” and “notifications” is meaningless- lots of things appear as messages which are automatic notifications. I want a list of messages that is just messages. And I want to be able to filter notifications (favourited items, shipping confirmation ms etc) by what type of notification it is and whether I am buying or selling. When I’m selling I want to be responsive to buyers - make sure I’ve answered queries, responded to offers and posted items on time without having to endlessly scroll through loads of irrelevant stuff. Upvote 10 Downvote Award Share Share u/BoredReceptionist1 avatar BoredReceptionist1 • 9mo ago Yes! And the amount of so-called messages is insane. Every time, as a buyer, that an order arrives, is collected, and marked as "ok", you get a new message in your inbox! I really hope the vinted staff lurk on this sub but I highly doubt it Upvote 8 Downvote Award Share Share u/Pale-Cat9258 avatar Pale-Cat9258 OP • 9mo ago I know! I missed messages from a potential buyer recently because it coincided with a few days after I’d shipped about 10 packages so it was totally lost amongst all the automated messages about parcels delivered. I don’t even really care whether a parcel has arrived, I assumed that 9 times out of 10 that’s all going to be fine - I just wanted to be alerted if a buyer has an issue. Upvote 5 Downvote Award Share Share
u/OpheliaObelia avatar OpheliaObelia • 9mo ago Yes yes yes! I have 24 unread messages from last year or something - between all of the offer messages, sales, etc, I literally cannot find them!

Solution

I targeted two parts of Vinted’s notification ecosystem which could be feasible in a “cheap way” regarding the development time.

1. Ux and UI change in the structure of the notifications and messages

Reorganise the concept of notifications and messages to make it more clear for the seller which actions should be done in order to successfully sell their product.

First of all, I separate Inbox/messages from Notifications. Right now it is two clicks from the home screen to reach the notifications and it is also not clear for the sellers why they got the notification of a sale in the form of a message.

Let’s make it only one click from the home screen to reach the notifications!

Psst! Let me tell you a secret. I used Miro’s inbuilt AI tool to generate these user flows and I loved it.

Then there is the question, where did the messages go? And my answer is, I am not sure – as this question is not part of this case study – but probably under the Profile section as it is a commonly used design formula among mobile apps. Or maybe messages shouldn’t exist at all as well-designed predetermined actions could offer a safer environment for the users. But enough of the messages it is not the point right now.

I also modified the UI of the notifications – in a simple and cheap way – to cath the users attention id there is a sale and there is need for an action (most importantly shipping).

So combine the rearrangement of the notifications’ view’s location inside the app and the ui improvement among the notifications I came up with this plan:

2. Minor UI change in the toast notification among notification shade

Even if there are a lot of types of notifications, there still could be some solution that a seller can easily differentiate those notifications which require further action from them. So I implemented a tiny UI change which is very “cheap” regarding the development time.

Redesign of notification shade to improve Vinted notifications effects

Expected impact

By separating messages from notifications and improving the clarity of important alerts, sellers will find it easier to track sales, ship on time, and avoid unnecessary frustration. This will likely lead to fewer missed transactions, fewer negative ratings, and a better overall seller experience. For Vinted, these changes would increase seller retention, resulting in a healthier marketplace with more active and engaged users.