Depop is a peer-to-peer online shopping application used by about ten million people around the world. What makes this application “peer-to-peer” is the ability it gives users to buy and sell items from other users. According to Depop, within their London Headquarters and offices in Milan and New York City, they only have about 80 employees. Since Depop has a wide range of items, from cameras to clothing to chairs. Their employees consist of photographers, DJs, illustrators, jewelry makers, painters, music producers, globetrotters, writers and activists.
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Depop’s design, as an application, almost has the exact layout as Instagram-an online photo-sharing application, but has the overall concept as eBay— an online auction service used to buy and sell items.
Initially Depop did not have a selling function but the founder, Simon Beckerman, modified the application to incorporate it and Beckerman also re-envisioned the application as a worldwide marketplace.
Depop uses PayPal— an electronic commerce company that facilitates payments between parties through online funds transfers, as their payment partner. For one to sell on Depop, they need to have a PayPal account for the transaction to process and Depop automatically charges a 10 percent fee on the total transaction amount. For only purchasing items, the user don’t need a PayPal account.
Sophomore Julianna Jacobs-Vargas has had her Depop account for more than a year. She shared, “I love how easy it is. I just do not love the Depop fee. Obviously [Depop] has to be making money too but they take about 10 percent of your sale price, I believe. That’s the only thing that sucks.”
When asked about the Depop application concept as an online thrift store, Jacobs-Vargas commented, “I do like the concept, but I definitely support real life thrift shops more because most [shops] have a charity they support by [donating] a percentage of their earning. [And] real life stores probably use less waste like boxes, bags, and wrapping paper… I like Depop because it takes less time than actually looking through all the clothes in a thrift store and you can actually talk to the original owner. I like how people can also sell reworks or custom pieces. I think it’s dope that you can find super high-end brands and vintage brands on the same [application]. You can also negotiate about prices with [the] sellers… all-in-all it’s a good app but I definitely still like to give my money to support real life stores more.”
Freshman Iliana Macias re-downloaded Depop recently and shared, “I love [Depop], especially how you are able to get cute stuff and sell to make a profit… I love how you can see your friends’ old clothes and how cheap they can be.”
