What happened to Depop?

Depop launched in 2011 as a side project to the cult Milan-based magazine PIG, founded by Simon Beckerman. It was meant to let readers buy what they saw on the page, but, once released to the masses, it evolved into something far more powerful – a digital marketplace infused with social currency. Instagram, meet eBay.

Influencers didn’t yet exist, but tastemakers did. Fashion bloggers began listing gifted clothes on Depop, letting fans shop their actual wardrobes. Their audiences followed, buying pieces, replicating aesthetics, and forming a new kind of secondhand subculture.

For young people priced out of retail trends but too overstimulated by eBay and its overwhelming scale, Depop was a revelation. It offered both a stage and a storefront. You didn’t just sell a top – you sold the story, the selfie, the soft-glow aesthetic that made it desire-worthy.

“Depop was used as a social media site when it first popped off,” fashion YouTuber Susie Lola told Jordan Theresa on her podcast Voice Notes last year. “In 2017, the pictures on Depop were like, ‘Here’s me looking hot – oh, and I’m selling this top.’ The hot pictures would get on the For You page of the app, and the good pics would sell. Depop became so aesthetic.”

By the late 2010s, Gen Z had flocked to the app, and Y2K fashion simultaneously exploded in popularity. It was like the year 2004 had been digitised and uploaded into the app. When COVID hit, the stars aligned. Locked indoors with nowhere to go and nothing to wear, many turned to fashion as an outlet and to Depop as both escapism and income.

“I was making £5K a week at one point,” says Isabella Vrana, a London-based seller who became synonymous with the app’s golden era. “The majority of my customers were either at school or uni, they were living at home, they had student loans they weren’t using, and everyone was shopping online. Honestly, in its heyday, it was the thing that everyone was talking about!”

Then, in 2021, off the back of this steady ascent, Etsy purchased Depop for £1.6 billion. Here’s where some identify the beginning of the end. Hailed as a way for Etsy to “capture Gen Z,” it slowly ushered in an identity crisis. Within months, users began noticing changes. Fees increased. The interface became more commercial. The For You feed – once a mix of cute selfies, quirky styling, and handmade goods – started to feel like an ad space.

But the most damning change? The algorithm. Small sellers, who once dominated the app with creative listings and DIY flair, suddenly found themselves buried beneath dropshippers and bulk resellers. “Depop was a very culturally significant app, and they lost sight of that,” Vrana comments on her YouTube channel. “In the beginning, they really focused on the community. They did a lot of seller profiling and understood that the sellers were what gave the app its cultural significance.”

Sellers began speculating that the algorithm was prioritising shops with high turnover, rewarding volume over curation. And for a platform built on community and culture, that shift felt like betrayal. “When you look at the selling fees, the people dropshipping fake eyelashes are probably making the app more money,” Vrana added. “But to keep people shopping on the app, it has to stay culturally relevant.” A platform built on sustainable values had begun copying the worst parts of fast fashion giants like Shein.

Some tried to adapt. Others opted out. For those who thrived during lockdown, the post-pandemic slump hit even harder. “I was a seller on Depop from 2017 to about 2022, and I was actually voted most influential Depop seller of 2020,” Hannah Valentine (Ghost Soda Clothing) writes on her Instagram. “But that’s where Depop reached its peak, sadly. I don’t sell on Depop anymore; now I only sell at in-person markets.”

As Depop’s grip loosened, another app quietly took over: Vinted.

Launched in Lithuania in 2008, Vinted had always played the long game. And when Depop began over-policing aesthetics and under-delivering on visibility, Vinted’s practicality won people over. “Vinted is like the modern eBay,” Vrana says. “It thrives on people doing wardrobe clearouts and selling their stuff cheap. Their marketing targets the masses, encouraging fresh inventory coming onto the app all the time, which makes it a better experience for both buyers and sellers.”

However, for disillusioned Depopers who missed the performance of fashion, something else had to eventually fill the gap. Recently, that something became TILT, a livestream resale platform launched in 2024 by ex-Revolut employees. Where Depop failed to scale community, TILT has rebuilt it – with chatrooms, live sales, and auction-like energy. “I switched to TILT six months ago,” Vrana says. “I’m making up to £15 a minute during live streams.”

On TILT, sellers show pieces on camera and chat with buyers in real time as AI generates the listings. “It’s a great way to come and have a chat, and it’s so nice to speak to people in the comments,” says Vivien Tang, a secondhand seller with almost 80,000 followers on Depop. “It’s just like a cute little comforting catch-up session every single week, and I love it.” TILT has also rekindled the social element that Depop lost – buyers recognise each other, sellers build rapport, and streams become mini-events.

Depop promised a fashion future rooted in sustainability and individuality, yet what emerged was a cautionary tale of algorithmic capitalism. Today, something like TILT offers a glimmer of what Depop once had: authentic community, creativity, and a little bit of Gen Z chaos. But is livestream shopping sustainable, or just another trend on borrowed time?

For fashion students, emerging designers or any creative wanting to break into the industry, Depop’s decline can be seen as a lesson in what happens when creativity collides with scale – an issue that seems to mirror the shifts happening at large in the industry in recent years. However, this shift can be seen as an opportunity to define a new post-fast fashion identity. Platforms like TILT hint at new opportunities to build direct-to-consumer models that prioritise personality over mass production. Whether you’re designing collections or curating secondhand edits, the takeaway is the same: many still crave storytelling, intimacy, real connection, and quality over quantity. The challenge now is finding – or creating – the next space where that can thrive.