A social shopping app hugely popular with teens is sitting on a treasure trove of data that could help brands decide what will be cool next
- Depop is a social shopping app described as a more user-friendly version of eBay and targeted at Gen Z shoppers.
- Since launching in 2012 (the company was founded in 2011), the app has grown to have 13 million users in 147 countries around the world, according to the company.
- In a conversation with Business Insider, Rachel Swidenbank - vice president of marketplace at Depop - said that the company is sitting on a treasure trove of data that could help brands predict what will become fashionable next.
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More than 13 million people have registered with Depop since it launched in 2012.
For some, any interaction with the app might have ended there, but the majority would likely have gone on to shop, sell, or, at the very least, search for an item on the app afterward.
Because of this, Depop says that it is sitting on a treasure trove of data showing what young consumers are shopping and searching for right now. Many brands that are targeted at these consumers would likely shell out big bucks to have access to it.
"We have access to millions of young people in the UK and US and what they are searching for and what they want," Rachel Swidenbank, vice president of Marketplace at Depop, told Business Insider.
Swidenbank said that she has also noticed that the shopping community is identifying trends two to three months before they hit the mainstream. While this data is currently only shared with sellers, so they can better identify what users want and then bolster their inventory, the company is not averse to sharing it with other companies or partnering with brands in the future, she said.
"A lot of people want to know what Gen Z is up to at the moment, what they are thinking, and what they are searching for, so it is definitely something that a lot of brands would love to get their hands on," she said.
While millennials were the most discussed and researched generation of the past decade, brands are increasingly shifting focus to the next generation as they begin to enter the workforce and have greater spending power.
These consumers, known as Gen Z, are currently in their teens and make up the lion's share of Depop's customers, Swidenbank said. 90% of Depop's users today are under 26.
"This company is for the next generation," she said.
Depop has become extremely popular with these teens, and based on the research about this generation, it's because they are happy to shop secondhand and are seeing value in the resale market to make money.