Depop sellers faced ongoing payment delays due to tech issue, company admits

Sellers on the Etsy-owned clothing resale app Depop have been facing delayed payments. Over the last few months, more and more sellers have reported that their payment dates were being delayed over and over, with little response from Depop’s support team.

Depop, which Etsy bought for $1.6 billion in 2021, is like Instagram for pawning off second-hand items — sellers post photos of clothes and accessories that they want to sell, which buyers can browse through hashtags and algorithmic recommendations. Buyers can make offers, and if the seller accepts, they will get paid — minus Depop’s cut — two days after delivery.

A streetwear seller, whose shop is @fentoozler791, told TechCrunch that they had a payment of $200 for multiple packages pushed back by over a week. At first, the Depop app said that they would be paid on a Wednesday; each day, the app pushed back the payout date by another day, and several attempts to contact Depop’s support team yielded no results.

“Depop didn’t reply with an actual written out response until I sent another request threatening to not use their services anymore. It seemed like they didn’t care until they realized they’d be losing my money from all the fees they’ve charged me,” @fentoozler791 told TechCrunch. “I’m lucky that my begging and lengthy paragraph finally persuaded them, but I never got a direct answer as to why this had happened.”

Several other sellers have reported similar issues on the r/Depop subreddit, X, Facebook and Instagram: Payout dates are repeatedly getting pushed back one day at a time with no explanation.

“I just sold an item last night and dropped it off at the post office today and I’m concerned I will have to contact Depop again after it’s delivered,” said @fentoozler791, who has been selling on Depop for over a year. “After this I’m not sure I’ll sell anymore on Depop.”

When TechCrunch first raised these sellers’ payout issues to Depop last week, a spokesperson said that the company’s support team has had a longer ticket queue than usual, but they did not know why sellers were having trouble getting paid. After further requests for comment, Depop told TechCrunch on Wednesday that it had uncovered an issue that caused these delayed payments.

“We’re really sorry that some sellers have been experiencing payout delays over the last week. We identified an issue in our automated payouts system that has now been fixed, and all pending payments have been sent out to affected sellers,” Depop said. “These should be received within the next few days, depending on bank processing times.”

Depop said that sellers who reached out to the support team should have received a response by today, and that the company will proactively notify its high-volume sellers.

Additionally, Depop has sometimes been instituting an unannounced extra fee, billed as a “buyers service fee.”

When TechCrunch asked Depop about the fee, a spokesperson suggested that this might be a test — but the test is being applied unequally across the app, meaning that some buyers have an extra few dollars to pay, while others do not. Depop’s Zendesk account had a page explaining the fee, but it has since been made private.

The now-private help page stated that the extra 5% fee was to “upgrade features, improve security, and optimize performance.”

“What the f— is our 10% covering then, if you need an extra 5% from the buyers as well?” said YouTube creator Just Old Things in a video. “You couldn’t speedrun blowing up your company any quicker than what Depop’s currently trying to do.”

Depop isn’t as popular as other resale sites like Poshmark, but some prefer the smaller platform because it takes a 10% cut of sales, as opposed to Poshmark’s 20%. Vinted is also growing in popularity in the U.K., since Poshmark is no longer available there.

Despite its recent sellers’ woes, data from Apptopia shows that Depop’s daily active user (DAU) counts have been increasing. Worldwide, mobile DAUs are up 30% year over year for this quarter. Depop told TechCrunch that it gained 5 million registered users last year, bringing its userbase up to 35 million.

“We know that prompt payouts are crucial for our sellers, and we’re making changes to our systems to ensure that we can process higher volumes of payouts quickly, as our community grows,” Depop said.

Etsy is acquiring UK-based social selling site Depop for $1.625B in a mostly cash deal