Late last week, peer-to-peer selling app Depop raised a stylish $62m to expand its platform for selling cool clothes to social followers.
The London-based startup, which has more than 13m users, is one of several peer-to-peer platforms powering a growing market at the intersection of second-hand shopping and social media.
Sometimes, influencers are more important than big brands
Depop’s platform is designed to connect 2 individuals, replacing the impersonal relationship between buyer and seller with social experience.
The platform’s users, 90% of whom are under 26, follow and message each other more than 85m times per month — and Depop’s top users make more than $100k on the platform annually.
Depop makes money by skimming a 10% fee off each transaction, and the company’s revenue has grown by more than 100% annually for the last several years.
Will second-hand selling stay stylish?
According to thredUP — which, along with Poshmark, Vinted, and Tradesy, competes with Depop — the market for resale clothes is on track to more than double from $24B to $51B over the next 5 years.
Depop shows no sign of slowing, either: CEO Maria Raga expects the number of Depop’s US users to triple from 5m to 15m in the next 3 years.