Depop Resellers: Friend or Foe?

2024 EVVY Nominee for Outstanding Opinion Article

Making its mark as a staple fashion network, Depop is a social e-commerce website, primarily used to buy and sell pre-loved, vintage, and reworked clothes. Initially, founder Simon Beckerman birthed the platform in 2011 as a way for readers of PIG Magazine to buy items from the young creatives it featured. However, Depop’s loyal Gen-Z and millennial customers have since transformed this platform into a whole new beast.

The phenomenon of Depop resellers and their hyper-curated stores is one that has sparked controversy over the ethics of “flipping” items, buying something cheap to later resell for a profitable value. Giving new life to pieces that may otherwise end up in a landfill, Depop promotes sustainability. It’s also fun! Unlike Poshmark, a generic reseller site, Depop succeeds tremendously with a young, trendy target demographic. They maintain an aesthetic standard by rewarding top creators and promoting them on the platform as exemplary shops. Their algorithm allows you to find exactly what you’re looking for when you type in certain fabrics and price ranges. A seller can even market their item with niche microtrend labels, such as “whimsy goth”–whatever that means.

Through Depop’s site design, it’s obvious that there is a certain level of fashion knowledge necessary to thrive on the app as a seller. If you aren’t passionate about niche microtrends and taking flawless photos, the algorithm will tank your items. And if you’re a clueless buyer, you’re at higher risk of being scammed by a Depop reseller. For resellers to have the most successful flip, an item needs to be sourced as cheaply as possible. A huge controversy surrounds this practice, especially when white, affluent fashion influencers go out of their way to shop in poorer neighborhoods. They get plenty of media backlash for stripping thrift stores of all their trendy clothes that could have otherwise gone to those who shop for necessities. Items that were originally priced at a couple of dollars get advertised at retail price on Depop. Additionally, when marketing these items, some resellers are misinformed about product origins, throwing in fashion buzzwords to overwhelm buyers. Vintage! Deadstock! 80s! Coquette! In reality, those thrifted jeans could be a fast fashion pair; it’s really hard to know and not cool to lie.

Growing up shopping second-hand, I’ve learned that resellers ravaging thrift stores of everything wearable is a huge myth. That being said, a privilege of mine is that I live in a Metropolitan area with at least 5 different thrift stores within a 10-minute radius. Each thrift store I go to rotates its selections daily; meaning if an item doesn’t get purchased within one to two days, it goes straight to a landfill. Goodwill Bins puts clothing out for about one to three hours before it all gets dumped forever. Even when the Bins are filled to capacity with shoppers, all the clothing does not get sold. This isn’t for lack of quality or attractiveness of the clothes; it’s simply surplus.

While it is strange and disrespectful for resellers to prowl low-income neighborhoods for a good thrift, not all do. And reselling can be a career that supports the livelihood of those who can’t work traditional jobs and need that source of income. Aja Barber, a Black writer and sustainability activist in the fashion landscape, recently tweeted on March 3, 2023, “It kind of shocks me how unimaginative people are about thrift. The rhetoric surrounding Depop resellers. Like the girl that launched it all, this coat looks like something she’d nab and £12.99 is a price everyone can get on,” and then she proceeds to link the same coat being resold on 5 different sites, disproving the scarcity of the thrifted item. Other replies linked the same coat as well, stating that Depop resellers are not the problem with enough clothes out there for everyone. It’s important to note that, while desirable, style is not a necessity, clothing is.

We all need clothing, and second-hand stores make this plausible. Developing a personal style, however, is an art form that requires time, research, and careful consideration. Therefore, if a hypercurated resale store is out of your price range, that’s okay. It’s also out of mine, and we can still curate our wardrobes without their business. Many thrift stores have huge discount days and rewards programs for local buyers. I encourage checking those out wherever you live! So Depop resellers—friend or foe? As long as they source mindfully and advertise transparently, there is little harm in what they do.

Liz FariasMay 9, 2023