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Last updated on: June 8, 2022
Depop is an ecommerce platform for peer-to-peer shopping with over 30 million registered users. While the online marketplace started as a platform for people to buy and sell their clothes, similar to other online thrift stores, Depop now also allows brands to set up their own online stores and sell directly to customers.
But just like most other major ecommerce websites, Depop has also not been immune to the problem of counterfeits.
In 2021, the mobile shopping platform raised $62 million in Series C funding. The company pledged to use the majority of their funding to grow its engineering and data teams in order to implement sophisticated image detection algorithms and speed up the removal of counterfeit or fake products.
In this article, we discuss:
While Depop started as an online fashion marketplace for clothes, it now also supports numerous other product categories. The thing that makes Depop unique is that it is a mobile marketplace with an almost Instagram-like feed with photos and profiles, which allows users to scroll through and check what products they like.
Founded by Simon Beckerman in 2011, Depop is a legit company with headquarters in London and offices in other locations like Manchester, Milan, New York City, and Los Angeles.
In 2021, Depop became a wholly owned subsidiary of Etsy.
Depop clearly states on their website that, “We respect creators at Depop, so we don’t allow anyone to sell counterfeit items on the app.”
The online marketplace platform also doesn’t allow the sale of any kind of products that infringe on someone else’s intellectual property. This can include but is not limited to:
If you have received a counterfeit product from a seller on Depop, here’s how you can report it:
1- Go to the ‘Submit a request’ page
2- Select Buying from the dropdown menu
3- Enter your email address (The same one that you used to register for your Depop account)
4- In the ‘What is the issue’ section, select “I suspect I received a counterfeit product”
5- Now, add your mode of payment, username, and the seller’s username. You will also be prompted to provide the name of the product and a description detailing how the product is a counterfeit. There is also an option to upload files which you can use to attach screenshots.
6- When you are done, click on Submit. Depop will review your request and get back to you in a few weeks.
While this is the process for reporting products that you have already bought, you can also report product listings that you believe are counterfeits.
You can report a product listing by tapping on the three dots on the product page and selecting ‘Report item.’ Choose ‘the item is fake,’ add details about why you think the product is fake and click on submit.
As Depop now allows brands to directly sell products to customers, you can set up online stores and become a part of Depop’s Seller Protection program. This in turn enables brands to ensure they are always protected and they are receiving orders from genuine customers.
All the sales that are made through the Depop BUY button are automatically covered by their Seller Protection. But to be eligible for Seller Protection, the payments should be made from within the Depop app, and not outside. Also, items should be shipped to the address mentioned on the Depop sales receipt and you should provide a valid shipment tracking number.
To restrict others from manufacturing products similar to yours or directly selling counterfeits, you need to register for your intellectual property so that you have the legal grounds to shut down all kinds of scammers trying to profit off of your brand.
You can register for copyright, trademark and patents, especially in countries where most counterfeit products may originate.
When you detect counterfeit product listings on Depop, the first thing you should focus on is shutting them down. Like Depop, most ecommerce platforms are aware of the counterfeit problems and they provide support for the enforcement process.
But like Depop, most ecommerce platforms aren’t proactively looking for counterfeit listings. Instead, they rely on users to report fake listings and then they investigate the case to eventually take the product listings down.
That means, you have to take steps to manually scan through the platform and then report each counterfeit listing separately. Not only can this be quite tedious, but it can be time consuming as well.
Red Points’ Marketplaces solution automatically scans all the major online marketplaces for alleged intellectual property infringements and reports them directly. It uses AI and automation to speed up the entire detection and removal process.
Depop is a trending online marketplace, especially for young customers, and selling your products there can help you reach out to a wider audience.
However, counterfeit product listings can make you lose out on sales revenue, harm your relationship with authorized distributors and even damage your brand reputation.
See how you can protect your brand on marketplaces with Red Points.
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