Social selling site Depop on why quantity is the key to quality

Peer-to-peer trading may be as old as civilisation, but now many eyes are on whether this concept has the potential to deliver a significant shake-up of the fashion sector.

Online platforms such as Depop are growing fast, attracting both customers and investors who see value in its app-based community of fashion fans who can buy, sell and share pictures of items and outfits.

“It’s just like Instagram and eBay together, and the kids love it and come back every day…that’s what makes the app great,” Depop head of digital marketing, Yoann Pavy, told the audience at the Festival of Marketing (10 October).

Depop was established as a social network for readers of PIG magazine back in 2011 by magazine founder – and head of sunglasses brand Retrosuperfuture – Simon Bekerman. When it became clear that a retail function was required, Depop evolved into a transactional network.

The network currently has more than 15 million users in 147 countries, skewed heavily towards those aged under 26, with plans to expand across Europe and Asia. The site appeals to many customers as an alternative to fast fashion, with some predictions saying that the secondhand fashion sector may overtake fast fashion within a decade.

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The fashion-based content is what keeps Depop members coming back to the site and Pavy has a clear view on how to create that content.

“Quantity will give you the quality,” he stated. “If you really put the content out there, if you are listening to what people are telling you as a result of that content, that’s how you will learn where the quality is within your content.”

Pavy maintains that it is not possible to create too much content. At Depop, organic content is often adapted into paid marketing by editing and chopping it up to make new messages. “Our best pieces of marketing content are often taken from our social media team’s best posts and putting them out as an ad,” he explained.

User-generated content is a prime source of marketing messages shared on Depop’s social media networks.

“A lot of our content on Instagram is just reposting the coolest shit that is on Depop for people to see,” Pavy added. “At the core, that’s our strategy. And then we add a little bit of influencer marketing, we have paid marketing on top of that and everything is interlinked.”