Nine billion dollars. That is what Americans spent on fashion through eBay and Depop in the past year.
Three months after eBay closed its $1.4 billion purchase of Depop, the company has put its first proper numbers on the pairing. On its third-quarter earnings call on 28 October, chief financial officer Peggy Alford told investors: “Combined, eBay and Depop generated approximately $9 billion in fashion GMV over the trailing 12 months in the U.S. alone, growing in the mid-20% range year-over-year on a pro forma basis.”
GMV, if you have not spent your evenings reading earnings transcripts, is gross merchandise volume – the total value of everything sold on the platform, before fees. Pro forma means eBay is counting Depop’s sales from before the deal too, so the comparison is like for like. Aka: the secondhand fashion business at eBay is now a $9 billion-a-year machine in the US, and it is growing at roughly 25 per cent. Fast fashion, take note.
Depop Is Growing Faster Than eBay Expected
The deal for Depop, the London-based Gen Z resale app founded in 2011, completed on 30 July. eBay bought it from Etsy for $1.4 billion in cash, according to the quarterly results published last week. That is a hefty discount on the $1.6 billion Etsy paid for it in 2021 – and, on this evidence, something of a bargain.
Chief executive Jamie Iannone did not hide his enthusiasm on the call. “Depop’s GMV growth outperformed our expectations in Q3, including U.S. GMV, monthly active users and sold items more than doubling year-over-year on a pro forma basis,” he said.
Read that again. US sales, monthly users and the number of items sold have all more than doubled in a year. Depop’s own numbers are not broken out in dollars, but according to Alford it added “nearly 3 points” to eBay’s total growth, helping push the group’s GMV to $23.2 billion for the quarter, up 16 per cent on a currency-neutral basis. Revenue hit $3.2 billion, up 14 per cent.
Iannone’s wider verdict on the quarter: “eBay’s strong third quarter results reflect continued momentum across our business priorities and customer segments as more consumers embrace recommerce.”
What Is Actually Changing On Depop
If you were worried that eBay would turn Depop into eBay, the company insists otherwise. “Overall, we are managing eBay and Depop as a portfolio,” Iannone said, “preserving each brand’s distinct experience and allocating investment toward opportunities that generate the strongest long-term returns for the combined company.”
That echoes the line from July, when he said eBay’s goal was “to preserve Depop’s strong brand, community, and product experience, while helping the team accelerate the roadmap that is already underway.”
So far, the changes are mostly under the bonnet. According to eBay, Depop has sped up personalised discovery on its homepage, simplified its AI-assisted listing flow and introduced more affordable shipping options in the US. The shipping part is where the parent company’s scale shows: “Access to eBay’s preferred carrier rates has lowered average parcel cost, making shipping investments more efficient,” Iannone said.
The more interesting experiment is happening on eBay itself. “In Q3, we tested a dedicated module of relevant Depop listings adjacent to eBay search results for select fashion queries,” Iannone revealed. In plain English: search eBay for a vintage Miu Miu bag and you may start seeing a row of Depop listings beside the results. Depop’s sellers get eBay’s audience. eBay’s shoppers get Depop’s inventory. Everyone, in theory, wins.
Why Gen Z Is Driving This
None of this works without the demand, and the demand is you. eBay’s sixth annual Recommerce Report, published in October and based on a survey of 10,522 consumers across ten countries including the UK, found that 47 per cent of people now buy secondhand at least monthly, up from 35 per cent in 2025. Some 89 per cent plan to spend the same or more on pre-loved next year.
The under-30s are miles ahead. Among 18 to 29-year-olds, 46 per cent buy secondhand weekly or fortnightly, compared with 28 per cent across all age groups, and 53 per cent expect to buy more secondhand over the next 12 months, against 36 per cent overall. Seventy per cent of consumers say secondhand is important to managing their household budget; among Gen Z, that rises to 76 per cent.
“Recommerce has been core to our marketplace for 30 years, and this year’s report makes clear that its role in people’s lives is only growing,” Iannone said when the report launched. “With more than 2 billion live eBay listings, consumers around the world are embracing secondhand for the affordability, quality, trust, and discovery it offers.”
Depop, meanwhile, was built for exactly this crowd. When the deal completed in July, eBay described it as expanding “our reach with the next generation of buyers and sellers.” Depop’s chief executive, Peter Semple, called the combination “a natural fit” and said the two “can accelerate our growth while continuing to deliver the unique experience our users value.”
The Luxury Angle
It is not all Y2K baby tees and vintage Levi’s. eBay’s fashion business “continues to be a source of growth led by luxury, which delivered another quarter of healthy double-digit GMV growth,” Iannone said. The company credits its Authenticity Guarantee – which now lets buyers in 23 EU countries purchase authenticated luxury from sellers in Germany, France and Italy – and claims it has “helped make eBay the leading online marketplace for secondhand luxury fashion sales in the U.S. and U.K.”
Which brings us to this side of the Atlantic. The $9 billion is a US-only figure, but eBay said its consumer-to-consumer business grew more than 20 per cent in the quarter, with “healthy double-digit growth across the U.S., U.K. and Australia,” and it launched eBay Shipping in the UK in Q3, which it says is up to 30 per cent cheaper than the old global programme. Depop has called London home for over a decade; the UK numbers will be worth watching when the next set of results lands in early 2027.
The Modems Take
Why we care: For years, resale was framed as the virtuous, slightly inconvenient alternative to buying new. These numbers suggest it has become the default – at least for anyone under 30. A $9 billion fashion business growing at 25 per cent is not a niche; it is a category that fast fashion, department stores and the luxury houses now have to compete with. And with Depop listings creeping into eBay search results, the gap between “thrifting” and simply “shopping” is about to get very thin indeed.
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