Depop

What Makes Depop Different

Depop feels more like Instagram than eBay. The interface is visual-first — a scrolling grid of photos, not a list of product titles. Buyers don't search for "women's medium black cotton t-shirt" the way they do on Poshmark or eBay. They browse aesthetically. They follow sellers whose style they like. They discover items through the Explore page, not through keyword optimization.

This difference matters because it changes what makes a listing successful. On Poshmark, titles and sharing volume drive visibility. On Etsy, tags and quality score determine rank. On Depop, your photo is the listing. A compelling image in a sea of thumbnails is what gets a buyer to stop scrolling. Everything else — description, price, hashtags — supports that initial visual hook.

Depop has over 56 million registered users, with 90% of active users under 26. The platform's identity is inseparable from Gen Z culture: sustainability, individuality, streetwear, vintage nostalgia, and the rejection of fast fashion. Sellers who understand this audience — what they value, how they communicate, what visual language resonates — consistently outperform sellers who treat Depop as just another listing platform.

The Depop Audience

Gen Z Buyer Psychology

Depop buyers aren't bargain hunters. They're looking for unique — items that express identity, not just cover a need. A vintage 1990s Nike windbreaker isn't just outerwear to a Depop buyer. It's a statement. This is why identical items can sell for dramatically different prices depending on presentation.

Key characteristics of Depop buyers:

• Sustainability-motivated: Over 60% of Gen Z has purchased secondhand clothing. They view thrifting as both ethical and stylish. Mentioning that an item is secondhand is a feature, not a disclaimer.
• Aesthetic-driven: Purchases are about curating a personal style, not finding the lowest price. Buyers will pay more for an item that's photographed in a way that matches their aesthetic vision.
• Community-oriented: Depop functions as a social network. Buyers follow sellers, comment on listings, and engage with shops they like. Sellers who participate in this community dynamic sell more than those who just list and wait.
• Mobile-first: Nearly all Depop browsing happens on mobile. Your photos need to look compelling at thumbnail size on a phone screen.

What Actually Sells

Depop isn't the right platform for everything. The items that perform best align with the audience's taste:

• Vintage clothing (1970s-2000s): Genuine vintage is Depop's core inventory category. Y2K, 90s grunge, and 80s bold prints all perform strongly.
• Streetwear: Nike, Carhartt, Stussy, Supreme — streetwear brands have a dedicated buyer base on Depop that skews younger and more engaged than on other platforms.
• Reworked/upcycled pieces: Customized items — cropped tees, patchwork denim, hand-dyed fabrics — command premium prices because they're one-of-a-kind. Depop buyers specifically seek this.
• Trendy contemporary fashion: Current-season pieces from brands with Gen Z cachet: Urban Outfitters, Zara (vintage-adjacent pieces), Brandy Melville, Dolls Kill.
• Accessories: Jewelry, bags, belts, and sunglasses — particularly vintage or statement pieces with strong visual appeal.

What doesn't work well on Depop: mall brands without aesthetic appeal (Gap basics, Old Navy), formal wear, plus-size (the audience skews young and the inventory leans smaller sizes), children's clothing, and home goods.

The Depop Algorithm

Depop's algorithm determines what appears in search results and on the Explore page. It weighs three primary factors: freshness, engagement, and seller reputation. Unlike Poshmark where you can brute-force visibility through sharing volume, Depop rewards genuine relevance and recency.

Freshness Is King

The single strongest signal in Depop's algorithm is recency. Newly listed items get priority placement in search results and the Explore page. This isn't a subtle boost — it's the dominant factor in early visibility.

Practical implications:

• List consistently, not in batches: Uploading 5-6 items daily keeps your shop continuously fresh in the algorithm. Uploading 30 items once a week gives you one day of freshness and six days of decay.
• Relist stale inventory: Items that have been sitting without engagement for 30+ days benefit from being deleted and relisted as new. This resets their freshness signal. Edit-and-save gives a smaller bump than a full relist.
• Time your listings: List when your audience is active. Evening hours (6-10 PM) see the highest engagement on Depop. Listing at 2 AM means your freshness window expires before most buyers see it.

Engagement Signals

After freshness, the algorithm looks at how buyers interact with your listing — particularly in the first hour after posting. Items that receive 3 or more likes in their first hour are significantly more likely to be promoted by the algorithm and ultimately sell.

This creates a snowball effect: early engagement leads to more visibility, which leads to more engagement. The reverse is also true — a listing that generates no engagement in its first hour gets deprioritized quickly.

How to seed early engagement:

• Engage with other sellers' posts before and after listing your own. Community interaction increases the likelihood others will visit and engage with your shop.
• Share new listings to your Instagram stories or TikTok with a direct link. Even 3-5 followers clicking through and liking provides the early signal the algorithm needs.
• Post at peak hours when your followers are most active, maximizing the chance of organic engagement within that critical first window.

Seller Reputation

Your overall shop metrics affect how the algorithm treats all of your listings:

• Response time: Sellers who respond to messages within an hour see measurably more listing visibility than those who take half a day. Depop has confirmed that response time influences ranking.
• Completed sales: A track record of successful transactions builds algorithmic trust. New shops have to work harder for the same visibility as established ones.
• Reviews: Positive reviews and high ratings contribute to your overall shop quality signal.
• Listing completeness: Filling in all available fields — size, brand, condition, category — gives the algorithm more data to match your listings with relevant searches.

Listing Strategy

Photography That Converts

On Depop, your photo IS the marketing. It's the thumbnail in search, the first impression on the Explore page, and the primary reason a buyer stops scrolling. Depop's visual-first interface means photography quality correlates with sales more directly than on any other reselling platform.

What works on Depop is different from what works elsewhere:

• Modeled shots outperform flat lays: Depop buyers want to see how clothing looks on a body. You don't need a professional model — mirror selfies, friends, mannequins, even creative hanging shots work. The key is showing the item worn or styled, not laid flat on a table.
• Aesthetic consistency: Your shop grid is your brand. Consistent lighting, backgrounds, and photography style make your shop look curated and trustworthy. Top Depop sellers maintain a recognizable visual identity across all their listings.
• Natural lighting: Depop's audience responds to natural, authentic-looking photos. Overprocessed, studio-perfect shots can actually feel too commercial for the platform. Golden hour light, window light, and outdoor settings all perform well.
• Detail shots matter: Include close-ups of unique features — labels, texture, hardware, print details. These are what distinguish vintage from generic and justify premium pricing.

Descriptions & Hashtags

Depop descriptions should read like a text to a friend, not an eBay product listing. The audience responds to conversational, genuine language:

• Tone: Casual, enthusiastic, personal. "Obsessed with this vintage Nike windbreaker, only selling because it doesn't fit me anymore" performs better than "Vintage Nike windbreaker, size medium, good condition."
• Key details: Still include size, measurements, condition, and material — buyers need this info. Just deliver it naturally rather than in a sterile product spec format.
• Hashtags: Depop allows up to 5 hashtags. Use them. Target specific aesthetics and styles: #vintage90s, #y2kfashion, #streetwear, #cottagecore, rather than generic tags like #fashion or #clothing.
• Call to action: A simple "Follow for more vintage finds" at the end of descriptions encourages followers, which means more people see your future listings in their feeds.

Engagement & Growth

Depop is a social marketplace. The sellers who grow fastest are the ones who treat it as a community, not a catalog. Active participation signals to both the algorithm and potential buyers that your shop is alive and worth following.

• Like and comment genuinely: Engage with other sellers' items that you actually find interesting. Authentic interaction leads to reciprocal engagement more reliably than mass-liking random listings.
• Respond to messages fast: Under an hour is the target. Fast responses don't just make buyers happy — they directly improve your algorithmic ranking. Depop has confirmed this is a ranking factor.
• Post to Instagram and TikTok: Cross-promote your Depop shop on platforms where Gen Z already lives. Behind-the-scenes sourcing content, try-on videos, and styling reels drive traffic to your Depop shop from audiences the algorithm wouldn't reach on its own.
• Follow sellers in your niche: Not for follow-backs, but to build genuine connections. The Depop community is tight-knit in specific niches (vintage streetwear, Y2K, indie brands), and being a known presence in your niche drives organic traffic.
• Bundle and offer deals: Depop buyers love a deal. Offering bundle discounts encourages multi-item purchases, increases your average order value, and creates positive reviews that boost your seller reputation.

Fee Structure (2026)

Depop overhauled its fee structure in mid-2024, and the current rates are among the most competitive in reselling:

• US and UK sellers: 0% selling commission on listings created after July 2024. You only pay payment processing: 3.3% + $0.45 per transaction in the US (2.9% + £0.30 in the UK).
• International sellers: Still subject to a 10% commission on top of payment processing.
• Boosted listings (optional): If you choose to boost a listing for extra visibility, an 8% fee applies on the sale price — only if the item sells via the boosted placement.

For US sellers, this makes Depop the cheapest major reselling platform by a significant margin. A $50 sale costs roughly $2.10 in fees on Depop, compared to $10 on Poshmark, $5 on Mercari, and $5-6.50 on eBay/Etsy. If your inventory appeals to Depop's audience, the fee advantage alone justifies prioritizing the platform.

Automation on Depop

Depop's stance on automation is stricter than Poshmark's. The platform explicitly prohibits automated actions — auto-following, auto-liking, mass-messaging, and bot-driven engagement. Their detection systems have improved significantly, and sellers who use aggressive automation tools risk account restrictions or bans.

What this means practically:

• No on-platform bots: Tools that simulate tapping, scrolling, or interacting within the Depop app are detectable and risky. The platform monitors behavioral patterns — repetitive actions at inhuman speed or consistency get flagged.
• Cross-listing tools are fine: Tools like FlipSail that manage your listings and inventory across platforms from the outside don't violate Depop's TOS. Creating a listing via a cross-listing tool is no different from creating it manually.
• Inventory sync is essential: When an item sells on another platform, it needs to come down from Depop immediately. Manual monitoring doesn't scale. FlipSail handles this automatically.

The automation opportunity on Depop isn't about automating engagement — it's about automating the operational side: listing creation, inventory management, cross-platform sync, and analytics. These are the tasks that consume time without requiring the personal touch that Depop's community-driven marketplace rewards.

Depop in a Multi-Platform Business

Depop is strongest as one piece of a cross-platform strategy, not a standalone channel. Its audience is specific (young, aesthetic-driven, trend-focused), which means plenty of reselling inventory doesn't fit the platform. But for the items that do fit, Depop often outperforms everything else.

How Depop complements other platforms:

• Depop + Poshmark: The same vintage dress might sell for $25 on Poshmark after weeks of sharing, or $40 on Depop in 3 days because a style-conscious buyer found it on the Explore page. Depop buyers pay premium for aesthetic curation.
• Depop + Etsy: Genuine vintage (20+ years) qualifies for both platforms. Etsy reaches an older, gift-buying audience; Depop reaches younger, personal-style buyers. Same item, different markets.
• Depop + eBay: Streetwear and sneakers that are too niche for Depop's audience (rare collectibles, older sneaker releases) often perform better on eBay where collectors congregate.

FlipSail makes multi-platform Depop selling practical. List an item once, push it to Depop, Poshmark, and Etsy with platform-specific descriptions, and let FlipSail handle the inventory sync when it sells. The manual alternative — listing separately on each platform and frantically delisting when something sells — doesn't scale past 50 items.