According to Depop, they are “the fashion marketplace app where the next generation comes to discover unique items”. They pride themselves on being a driving force in making fashion more inclusive, diverse and less wasteful. With the popularization of the thrifting aesthetic and the push back against the uber-wasteful fast fashion industry, they’ve hit big with environmentally-conscious young people and it shows in their numbers.
Currently, Depop has over 21 million users buying and selling clothing items on a single platform. Browsing the site without a specific goal in mind creates an everlasting thrift store experience. You can scroll for hours and never hit the end of the rack. And because over 90% of their users are under the age of 26, young people are more likely to find items marketed to them specifically. Depop also passed the trials of the COVID-19 pandemic with flying colors as they saw a 54% increase in orders between February and May.
Looking at the data, Depop is the online thrift-store authority and they should be taken seriously as the new wave of what it means to go shopping.
But when I explored depop.com for the first time, I found the website somewhat…funny.
To the credit of Depop sellers, they are certainly trying. Almost every item on the site is well photographed with proper lighting. Many go to the extra effort of modeling their items in poses that imitate high-fashion runway models. Cute backgrounds are standard: a makeshift studio, a chunky shoe held up against the clear blue sky, a bucket hat perched in green grass.
But there’s no hiding that the vast majority of the items are terribly overpriced, well-worn thrift store finds. And while I can understand the desire of having a vintage aesthetic, there’s no situation in which an old T-shirt should be priced at $40 USD. It seems like a joke that – surely – no one is actually falling for. Right?
Wrong.
Depop sellers have mastered the art of branding. Almost anything can fall into one of the trendy labels that young shoppers are hunting for. It may have been an old tank top the seller dug out of their parent’s closet but now it’s “Y2K” and it’s worth $30 USD. An old cardigan is suddenly “cottagecore”. And that old pair of boots sitting on the shelf at Goodwill? “Dark academia”.
Outsiders are quick to call these flippers opportunistic but I can find the profession admirable. If you work hard on your brand and stay on top of what’s trending, you can be successful. It’s a smart way to gain another stream of income, especially if you’re too busy to add a part-time job onto your schedule. And on the surface, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with upselling old, cheap clothes. Upselling is not by any means a new phenomenon. The Depop sellers of the past lived on eBay and in flea markets and we learned to live with them.
But a problem arises when wealthy Depop sellers purchase loads of items from local charity shops that low-income communities rely on. People believe that this practice drains charity shops of quality items and encourages these shops to raise prices, which lays the foundation for the idea of gentrification of second-hand shopping. Much like how the development of high-income housing in inner cities drives out the low-income population that originally lived there, it is believed that thrift-store flippers have contributed to the driving out of low-income customers from their local charity shops.
If you’ve been paying attention to social media in the past year, thrift-store flippers have come under fire for upselling and gentrification. But is there any hard data to back up these claims? Right now, no. The only evidence is experiential or speculatory. Several people might agree that brick and mortar thrift-store prices have increased but the valuation of money is fickle. The statistics needed to prove that a significant increase exists are unavailable.
Some may bring up Goodwill’s new policy as of 2020 that got rid of the fixed price system and implemented a range of prices that the store managers can select from. But again, there are no facts to prove that this policy was a result of thrift-store flippers or that the policy has increased prices.
As thrift-store flippers have come to their own defense against being labeled as unethical, they’ve brought up some valid points about the fashion industry that also need to be discussed. Primarily, the fact that charity shops have too many clothes. Goodwill receives so many donations that some stuff just doesn’t sell and can end up in landfills. But thrift-store flippers don’t blame Goodwill for this waste. This falls on the fast fashion industry, one of the planet’s biggest polluters.
Whether we like it or not, thrift-store flippers are helping in the fight against fast fashion by directly reducing waste and inspiring others to buy second-hand. And let’s not forget the purpose of charity shops which is to raise money for community projects. By buying items in bulk from non-profit stores, thrift-store flippers are donating to low-income communities.
I think before we condemn Depop and their sellers, it’s important that Depop and other online thrifting platforms collect solid data about the gentrification of fashion. Not just to prove that it may exist but also to properly characterize the landscape so that well thought out solutions can be developed and implemented.
This solid data includes statistics about price increases, clothing availability and testimony from the low-income population. Right now, a lot of the conversation about fashion gentrification is happening between wealthy white individuals who are trying to speak on behalf of low-income consumers. It’s time that we actively seek their personal experiences and let them speak for themselves.
In the meantime, education about the potential harm of buying out thrift stores should definitely continue. It’s okay if you’re looking to make a quick buck on Depop but maybe you should steer clear of buying every children’s t-shirt at Goodwill to market as crop-tops. And for those of us who want to switch to buying second-hand clothes, we can be mindful of who we purchase from on Depop. We can ask questions about where they sourced their items from. If we’re going to thrift, let’s thrift responsibly.
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