Depop / WIRED

Selling stuff online isn’t new. But for teens and young people, eBay, Gumtree and Craigslist are outdated.

Instead, Generation Instagram has discovered Depop – half social network, half shopping platform, which lets users upload pictures of stuff they own, to sell directly to others. Depop now has 11 million users – three quarters of them are under 25. And if you’ve got a popular store or are featured on the explore page that’s curated by Depop staff, the platform can turn into a steady source of income.


Founded in 2011, Depop was one of the first apps that brought buyers and sellers together directly. It’s not the only app of its kind, there is Vinted, Poshmark (currently US only), and ThredUp which are based on similar concepts, but each is trying to carve out its own niche. Some allow you to list designer clothing only, while others don’t have an app but rely on web browsers.

Depop now has offices in London, Los Angeles, New York and Milan, counts US models Dita Von Teese and Emily Ratajkowski among its users, and has collaborated with the likes of Nike and Converse.

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But how did a niche clothing app evolve into a bona fide social network? “In 2011, there weren’t any apps where you could buy and sell things like that,” explains Simon Beckerman, Depop’s co-founder and head of design. “I tried to implement all of the things which this new generation had with other products, so it was like Instagram with a buy button.

"Young people, who used their phones a lot and are used to social networks, found that it was easy to use. We also wanted to create a community around it – so creating new experiences, new trends – through this kind of discovery feature.”


The company’s emphasis is on users, says CEO Maria Raga. “Depop is very much a community driven fashion platform". The development team keeps a close eye on its users, with new features only being rolled out once many users have asked for them. For example, adding a messaging function has made it more likely that users will talk to each other if they have a problem with an item, or want to know how it would fit them if they have a different body type.

Sellers on the app, who might have started as teenagers flogging things they used to wear or found in local second-hand stores, are often now considered influencers, racking up thousands of followers on Instagram and clothing deals too. Fiona Short, who runs Fifi’s Closet (an account with more than 161,0000 followers), says Depop is more than about making money.

“It’s a community of creatives,” she says. “I’ve met some of my friends through Depop, I’ve been able to support my studies, and travel and do things I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.”

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The range is eclectic. Depop lists clothing that was fashionable 10 years ago, alongside the most recent Supreme drop. Beckerman says it’s part of the appeal. “On our explore section, we don’t show the things which we think are trendy, but the things which we think could be.”

Reselling used clothing also speaks strongly to the popularity of the circular economy; why bin clothing that’s still perfectly wearable, and that might hit somebody else’s fashion sweet spot? “Young people are increasingly connected to the circular economy and are looking for more opportunities to behave in a more sustainable way,” says Isabelle Szmigin, professor of marketing at Birmingham University.

For Thomas Platenga, CEO of second-hand clothing app Vinted, it’s a key part of the concept: “If all of us started to consume secondhand clothing instead of fast fashion, then this problem will be partly solved.”

Depop got its break in 2014, when Apple featured it on the App Store's homepage. At the same time Italian fashion blogger, Chiara Ferragni, also started posting about it on her social media feeds. The spike in users was enough to take Depop’s servers down for two hours, and still haunts Beckerman, worrying that it could have gained even more users.

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“If you build a platform to host one million users and don’t think long term, then you have to use band-aids," Raga adds. "It means that you then can’t develop new features because of the ones you’re already struggling to deal with.”

“Scalability has been an issue ever since,” says Beckerman. “In terms of growing, the challenge between growth and money – we never try to have goals based on them, because our end point is the user experience, but we are always thinking about it.”

Right now, Depop still relies on venture capital; so far, the company raised $43.6 million (£33.9m). Beckerman admits that Depop struggles to reconcile the ambition to grow with the need to make money. On the upside, Depop hardly spends anything on advertising, because it can rely on “organic growth” that’s driven by word of mouth.

That also means that Depop has to allow its sellers to set some of the direction, like when they come and host workshops or take photos at Depop’s London office; the company in turn tries to help its top sellers to grow their own business, with workshops on how to file their taxes, for examples, or do their accounts.

“Fashion is a really elitist industry,” says Raga. “Allowing people to just list an item, getting the community to dictate whether it’s cool or not – that’s what works.”

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