Etsy released on Wednesday 2nd June that they are buying one of the biggest second hand clothing selling sites around the world, Depop for $1.6bn (£1.5bn).
Josh Silverman, the chief executive of Brooklyn-based Etsy, said “This [gen Z] is an enormous demographic and it’s the trendsetter demographic,” he told analysts on a call to discuss the deal.
Depop is a popular second hand clothing selling site used all over the world. It was founded in Milan during 2011 by Simon Beckerman who worked at PIG Magazine. “The concept for the app was initially a shop for the PIG magazine I worked for in Italy and we would sell everything featured in the magazine,” he said.
“When we started Depop, apps were [in their] very early stages and apart from the three or four main ones that everybody was starting to use heavily – such as Instagram, Facebook or Twitter – it wasn’t very clear how we were going to use them fully. We didn’t realise how integrated with our lives they would be.”
The demand for secondhand clothing has rapidly increased due to the environmentally-conscious Millennials and Gen Z users. They account for over 90% of Depops users, who are under 26 years old.
Etsy have said that they expect to close the deal by the end of September 2021, and estimate that Depop will grow to $64bn sales by 2024 in comparison to 2020s figure of $28bn.
150 countries have registered with Depop and its 2 million active sellers sold $650m in 2020. The business now has offices in London, Manchester, New York, Los Angeles and Sydney and about 400 employees overall.
“Etsy is not always the first port of call for shoppers interested in fashion resale — especially outside of the United States. Over the next ten [years], the [resale market] will become larger still, fuelled by an interest in sustainability, a desire for uniqueness, and the rise of the participatory consumer who wants to trade as well as buy,” Neil Saunders, managing director of market research firm GlobalData, said in a note Wednesday.
Screenshot from Depop’s search page
