Japanese writer Miura Hideo divides Japan’s consumption stages in “The Fourth Age of Consumption”: the first consumption era is the consumption enjoyed by a small middle class; The second era of consumption is family-centered consumption; The third era of consumption is the rise of personalized consumption; The fourth era of consumption is a society that values “sharing”.
Related Reading: How Does Depop Work?
Miura was originally intended to describe the changes in social consumption in Japan, but the theory of the fourth consumption era has now become an important theoretical support for the development of the second-hand economy.
According to Fast Company, Depop originated as a technology incubator company in Italy, was founded in 2011, moved its headquarters to London not long after, and as of mid-2020, Depop has more than 20 million users in 147 countries. The platform’s profit model is actually very simple, through the platform to sell goods on Depop 10% commission to obtain income.
So how can Depop capture the hearts of young people? Below are some reasons we list:
Depop becomes a trend display platform
From the perspective of product logic, Depop integrates the characteristics of Instagram and eBay, and actually focuses on the concept of clothing trend community, rather than the concept of second-hand trading platform, and slowly channels the development of e-commerce from the community.
It is precisely because of the strong sense of community that a large number of millennial and Gen Z users have gathered, including a large number of artists, designers, collectors, antique players and other users. According to relevant data, more than 90% of shangp on the Depop platform are trendy and fashionable items.
In fact, we can even see the spiritual world of Generation Z users from Depop, from tie-dye to vintage design, there is a large number of user creative content, and it is these contents that enhance user stickiness and retention.
On the whole, most of these artistic creations about clothing on Depop revolve around sustainable use and environmental protection concepts, matching the attributes of second-hand platforms. if you are not satisfied with your shopping, you can also cancel Depop orders easily.
Depop can reinforce users’ emotional connections
Compared with domestic platforms such as idle fish and zhuanzhuan, Depop emphasizes social shopping. Most of the operational focus of domestic platforms is how to serve the entire transaction chain, make transactions more convenient, make goods richer, and make services more comprehensive, and one of Depop’s operational directions is to promote direct social links for users. The earliest domestic industry observers compared Depop to the British version of “Douban stuff”.
From the perspective of user demand, shopping often comes from two aspects: the first is to have clear product demand, so as to find the corresponding goods; The second is the love of content and business, thereby stimulating product consumption demand. It can be said that domestic platforms often focus on the former consumer demand, while Depop pays more attention to the latter consumer demand, which can also be said to be a large business increment for merchants.
Depop helps build a UGC creative display space
The platform continues to guide the creation of C-end users through content operation during the operation process, even ordinary amateurs can carry out their own second-hand clothing creation through Depop, and at the same time obtain monetization benefits. Compared to Instagram, Depop’s theme is more focused and monetized.
We can also think of Depop as opening up the commercialization channel for content creators. According to media reports, with easy Depop Payment, there are indeed many amateur users who have entered the fashion circle through Depop, and the current Depop ecology should still belong to the growth dividend period.
If you want to know about its refund policy, read on How to Refund on Depop.
Final Words on Depop
It is not difficult to find that there are a large number of users on the platform to modify and renew the ideas of second-hand products, and a large number of ideas are also from the majority of ordinary users.
Fashion trends are fickle, but often the first to originate in youth culture, Depop is optimistic about the logic of the industry is also that it is becoming a birthplace of young people’s trend culture, and the good integration of content and e-commerce can open up greater development space for the platform.