Depop, a rapidly growing venture, aspired to become the leading social shopping app. To achieve this, they needed to gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audience and their motivations. Their goal was to increase platform penetration among 16-24-year-old mobile fashion buyers in the US and UK.
However, without a clear understanding of their customers, scaling the business and developing meaningful marketing strategies posed a challenge. Sense Worldwide was brought in to unlock insights, identify future consumer trends, and uncover growth opportunities.
To propel business growth on a global scale, we embarked on an extensive exploration of what would motivate users to engage with depop’s marketplace, both in the present and the future. Our objective was to provide actionable insights that would inform targeted marketing efforts and establish meaningful connections with users.
We collaborated with members of The Sense Network, including thrifty fashionistas, masterful connoisseurs, label lovers, penny-pinchers, and high-street trendies. We delved into the distinct user segments, aiming to understand their motivations for downloading, engaging, using, and sharing the app. Through in-depth interviews and an exploratory quantitative research survey with 900 respondents, we gained valuable insights into user behaviors, spending habits, and category preferences. We were able to identify segment size, gauge the total addressable market, diagnose spending power, and measure existing brand awareness.
Our research yielded six nuanced consumer personas that vividly captured potential depop users, uncovering their attitudes, behaviors, aspirations, and decision-making drivers. These personas formed the cornerstone of depop’s strategy, driving exceptional outcomes. They seamlessly aligned with depop’s objectives and propelled the business toward unparalleled success.
depop experienced an impressive 85% year-on-year sales growth, resulting in an estimated revenue increase of 100% (from $230 million to $460 million). The user base grew to over 21 million, with 80% of users coming from the targeted Gen Z market.
Today 80% of Depop users are under 25-years-old, its users sold $230 million of clothing last year, and are on track to double that to $460 million.
CEO, depop
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