How SEO Has Helped Me Make Money by Selling My Old Clothes

As a marketing student in my senior year of college, I have resorted to trying every side hustle possible to help pay for my education. One of my friends recently introduced me to Depop, an ecommerce app that provides users a marketplace to buy and sell clothing (and other related items) remotely. Depop follows a brokerage business model and makes money via a platform fee of 10% per sale as well as a small transaction fee. I started using Depop about six months ago, and in that time I have sold over 50 articles of clothing on the app; I’ve also purchased a few items from other sellers for myself as well. It’s basically a giant online thrift store from sellers all around the world, and if you are able to list your items properly and get your photos on as many buyers’ feeds as possible, it can be very easy and profitable to sell the things in your closet that you don’t need anymore. 

For my first month or so using Depop, it was definitely a learning curve and it took me a little bit to get the hang of things. I’d list a few items, get three or four “likes” in the first five minutes that the posts were live, and then silence – nothing was selling. Once I began taking an internet marketing course and learned about SEO, it changed everything for me and I started selling things left and right on Depop. Utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) techniques increased my account’s traffic and reach, helped me increase my follower count, and made it easier for buyers to find my listings based on what they were searching for. The software and nature of the Depop app is strictly mobile, and allows users to categorize their listings by brand, condition, size, color, price, style, and many more features which can be used in SEO. For example, as a 23-year-old woman, my clothing that I am trying to sell to a similar demographic will value brand name at a higher level than most. Knowing this and placing myself into the mind of my consumer, I conclude that it is highly probable that users are organically searching for products by brand name, which is why I always include the exact name of the brand on the tag in my listings. Being able to accurately describe the product in each listing as specifically as possible with as many related words and hashtags as possible increases the probability of it coming up on the feeds of those who are genuinely interested in my items. After I realized this, I always make sure to allocate a small section at the bottom of the caption of each listing which I call a “tags section” which includes these related terms and tags that I predict that buyers will use to search for products that are similar to the one I have in the listing. Including this section in each listing assists in guiding more consumers who would be interested in my clothing to my store, and results in more sales. 

To conclude, Depop is a great way for anyone to learn tips and tricks of SEO by putting it into practice while also making money off of clothing that you no longer need in your closet. To me, this is a win-win situation, and I’d recommend for anyone to try it out. My #1 tip is to make sure you include a tags section!