If eBay and Instagram had a baby, is the only short way of decribing Depop. A social media site used by normal people to sell clothing online used by over 30 million people. To cut to the chase, Depop selling is something I have personally tried and failed many times albeit some success was made initially. The real trick to cracking the Depop algorithm? Persistence. And of course all the trimming that go along with having a successful Depop shop. Now seeing as I’ve already attempted this Side Hustle I luckily have about 3 months of work to share with you.
As you can see in the image above, I managed to gather 2938 followers on my shop where I posted over 40 items for sale(not all sold). Followers are one of the most important things to a depop page, its one of the first thing myself and every other customer looks at before purchasing. Now, obviously you don’t need a million followers to sell a t-shirt online, however it lets the customer feel like they can trust you and you’re services a little better. The real driving force that will help your Depop gain traction is how much time and effort you put into it. To get those 5 star reviews (shown above in image are 20 5 star reviews on my page) you will need to market an attractive brand.
Something I chose to do was start a Instagram page for my shop and spam follow as many people I could who were related to vintage clothing accounts. This isn’t really that important however I wanted to generate as many followers to my page as I could. If someone was to see one of my items on instagram they could quite easily follow the link to my account.
The image above shows my attempt to;
- Create a Brand Logo for my Shop
- Have a simple clear background
- Show the full item and all its specifications in good lighting
- Most importantly by having presentable brand image
- Writing a accurate description and including keywords
This didn’t cost me a lot to do, the hanging lights, the cardboard cutouts and the sticky wall hooks came to about £9 maybe. The real cost is the clothing you sell. Now I’m sure many of you will have lots of old clothes or shoes you no longer wear however if you want to make real money on Depop you will need to resell. That can mean going to a charity shop and finding bargains, buying on eBay and selling on depop for a profit or Bulk buy online. Bulk buying is what most of these successful Depop shops do, I reached out to several Depop shops of which I personally buy from. These sellers upload hundreds of items a week and turn thousands of profit a month. I essentially asked them what their secret sauce was? Where do they get the clothes from that they mark up 10,15,25% per item? Well as you can guess very few replied and the ones that did pretty much said I’m not telling you. So in the height of lockdown I went online and purchased a bulk buy order in an attempt to be a Depop thousandaire! I Spent £225 on the box which had 40 items inside. Working out at £5.60 an item. I was over the moon when it arrived… however the website had clearly misleads me as I was presented with utter trash. Items wear extra small to medium mainly or unheard of brands. I managed to pick out about just 8 items that I would upload to my site of which 4 sold, amassing a spectacular £37. A lesson was learned however. Always be sure!
Conclusion
The moment you have all been waiting for is Depop a good side hustle to get into? Well my answer would be Yes. Depop can be whatever you make of it, 2 hours a day or 6. £100 invested or £1000. As long as you keep at it and post attractive posts you will begin to gain a following and ultimately start making money. My Depop which is still up and active is split into bulk buy, depop reselling and charity shop finds, so the profits aren’t comparable however I will tell you exactly how much I made from selling. So I sold 16 items on depop over the space of about 3 months. From those 16 items I made £377. Yes Depop is worth it and yes it is definitely a grind. If I had more time and put more into it I could have definitely made more money. So if you have some clothes lying around you don’t wear anymore and a couple hours then why not set up a Depop account, because one mans trash is another mans Treasure.
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