On Wednesday, June 2, Etsy, Inc announced it’s set to buy Depop, a London-based privately-held fashion marketplace, for $1.63 billion. After a pandemic-driven increase in sales over the last year, Etsy, among the world’s best-known e-commerce platforms for handmade goods and vintage items, estimates the U.S. second-hand clothing market alone will be worth $64 billion by 2024. Chief Executive Officer Josh Silverman said in a statement that he saw Depop as “the resale home for Gen-Z consumers.” He also believed there was significant potential to scale up its business as he seeks to offset the return of consumers to the more traditional mall and high street shopping over the next year. Depop was founded in 2011 and is known for its vintage and streetwear collections and has more than 26 million users from over 147 countries. The cash deal, which is expected to close by the end of this year, exemplifies the growing influence of clothing resale platforms.
Many shoppers — especially Gen Z — are turning to the secondhand market for sustainable clothing they can afford as the overproduction of clothing and fast-fashion aids in the harm of its workers and the environment. This current secondhand trend appears to have been accelerated by the pandemic as more shoppers are selling their old clothes. In the United States companies such as ThredUp and Poshmark have gone public this year showing the expansion of these reseller brands. Depop has been particularly successful in building a marketplace for younger consumers, who are adopting second-hand fashion faster than any other group. Especially with social platforms like TikTok providing eons of thrifting content, secondhand clothing is all the wave. Ninety percent of its users are under 26, with 30 million users across 150 countries.
“We are simply thrilled to be adding Depop — what we believe to be the resale home for Gen Z consumers — to the Etsy family,” the Etsy chief executive, Josh Silverman says. He continues by saying that he believed the platform has “significant potential to further scale” and said that he saw “significant opportunities for shared expertise and growth synergies” for Etsy’s apparel sector, which was valued at $1 billion last year.
