I'm surprised anyone would write this off. It's a trendy eBay for a specific niche (used/"vintage" clothes). If you can get it to scale (obviously not easy) it seems like it's an easy win and easy to monetise. On the surface a much better investment opportunity than a lot of the stuff we see on HN.
I've used depop a fair amount, I think it's a big leg up over eBay because of it draws some useful features from social media.
The feed allows you to follow and discover sellers whose style suits you, and stay informed of their offerings. You can see who they follow, and so on.
I took a quick look through it. I didn't really get it though. If it's used clothes, why are there people selling large quantities like a business? That doesn't seem like a compatible idea?
The prices seemed lower than average new retail prices by a bit, but not much. There's no obvious way to signal clothes were purchased from depop as far as I could tell...
The only conclusion I can draw is that the used aspect has to be a sort of gimmick used to define the store brand, but in reality most of the money is made on niche sellers doing original products chasing a very long tail of fashion.
I live in Japan, thrift stores here sell rare stuff you literally can’t find new in stores, and have scouts who scour the planet for rare finds and ship them back to sell from stores. Sometimes clothes are altered to combine or remix classic styles, too. Prices can match or exceed new goods. And people happily pay for it, there are probably as many used clothes stores as there are for new ones. I’d imagine businesses like this can sell a large catalog on sites like Depop.
I think you’re thinking of used clothes like other used goods - a budget, subpar alternative - but think of it more like, achieving a look from a different era, or collecting something unique, and then it makes more sense.
