If you're listing vintage clothing on Vinted or Depop and wondering why growth feels so slow, you're not imagining it. The traditional listing model has a ceiling - and most sellers hit it fast.
Courtney Lynch hit hers at 50 items a week. Today, she can shift over 100 items in a single day. She now makes £25,000 a month selling vintage branded clothing on Tilt, the UK's live auction app for fashion and collectibles. The Sun recently covered her story - and if you sell clothes online, it's worth paying attention.
From Food Banks to £100,000 in Sales
Courtney is 28, based in Halifax, and runs a physical vintage boutique called LYNCH alongside her Tilt store. When she started on Tilt in December 2023, she was, in her own words, "flat broke and a nervous wreck." Vinted was slow, the shop wasn't covering costs, and she had five kids to support.
She joined Tilt almost out of desperation. Her first few nights on stream brought in £200 - more than her shop was making in a week. Within a few months she'd hit nearly £30,000 in a single month. She's since crossed £100,000 in total sales, hired her partner and two part-time staff, and launched a wholesale sourcing company to keep up with demand.
That's not a fluke. That's what happens when you move from a static listing platform to live auctions - where real-time urgency does the selling for you.
Why Live Auctions Beat Traditional Listings for Vintage Sellers
The fundamental difference between platforms like Vinted and a live auction model is velocity. On Vinted, your items sit in a feed, competing with thousands of other listings. Buyers scroll past. They favourite, they forget. You wait.
On Tilt, you go live. Buyers are in the room with you. Items appear at the bottom of the stream, bids come in, and auctions close fast. Courtney runs four to five streams a week - including a full day on Sundays - and does between 2,000 and 3,000 auctions a month. That volume simply isn't possible through static listings.
The business model she describes is built on throughput: some items make £10, others go for £100 or more. She once sold a single designer piece for £150. Because she's moving so much stock, the numbers balance out strongly in her favour.
The Platform Numbers That Matter for Sellers
Tilt's fee structure is one of the most competitive in the market. Seller fees start from just 2% plus 50p per transaction - significantly lower than Depop's 10% commission or eBay's 12.8% plus 30p. That difference compounds fast when you're selling at Courtney's volume.
You're also selling to over 1 million buyers who are specifically on the platform because they want fashion and collectibles. This isn't a general marketplace where your vintage Nike hoodie is sitting alongside second-hand sofas. Tilt's audience came for exactly what you're selling.
And with Tilt's integrated shipping and faster payouts - targeting 3–4 days versus the 7–11 days standard elsewhere - your cash flow stays healthy as your business scales.
"I Couldn't Imagine Going Back"
Courtney's story is compelling partly because she's so direct about where she started. She wasn't an experienced e-commerce seller. She didn't have a big social following or a professional studio. She had stock, a phone, and a willingness to go live.
The first streams were nerve-wracking, she admits - but she now describes it as the "biggest confidence boost" of her career. The community aspect of live selling, where buyers chat, ask questions, and return week after week for their favourite sellers, creates something static listings never can: loyalty. On Tilt, 68% of repeat buyers spend most of their time with a single seller. Your regulars become your revenue base.
As Courtney puts it: "Tilt has truly changed my life forever and I can't express how thankful I am to the team."
She's not alone. Beautybeholder, another Tilt seller, describes it as "by far the best platform I have sold on" - crediting low fees and continued growth in viewers. Kameleonvintage scaled their business and found a community of engaged buyers they couldn't reach elsewhere.
What You Need to Get Started
The practical barrier is lower than most sellers expect. You download the app, create an account, connect your Shopify store (or contact support to set one up), and you're live. Tilt's AI-assisted listing tool - Snap Listings - generates polished product listings from a photo, so you're not writing descriptions one by one.
Courtney's advice is effectively: start before you feel ready. The platform rewards consistency and volume. The sellers who grow are the ones who show up regularly, build a regular audience, and keep the auctions moving.
The Sun's feature on Courtney is a useful reference point - not just as inspiration, but as a genuine case study in what's possible when you take live selling seriously. She went from struggling to afford Christmas presents to running a wholesale operation with staff, simply by changing the platform she sold on.
If you're already sourcing good vintage stock and hitting a wall on where to sell it, the ceiling you're banging against might just be the platform.
Start selling at tilt.app/sell.