Depop is removing seller fees in Australia after the same move drove a 30 to 45% jump in listings in the UK and US. It is a supply-side growth play, and a lesson in how pricing changes marketplace behaviour.
Free is not a discount. It is a lever that changes how the people on your platform behave.
Depop is removing seller fees in Australia. The resale marketplace made the same move in the United Kingdom and United States earlier, and it says listings jumped 30 to 45% when it did. The company is calling its Australian growth remarkable and betting that free selling will pour more stock onto the platform.
This is a supply-side play, plain and simple. A resale marketplace lives or dies on how much good stock it has. Drop the friction on listing and more sellers list more items, which gives buyers more reason to show up, which gives sellers more reason to keep listing. The fee was the handbrake. Depop just released it.
Why it matters
Every Australian business with a two-sided model, a marketplace, a platform or a network, should read this as a case study in pricing psychology. The fee Depop dropped was not large per sale. What it removed was a moment of hesitation before every listing. Take away the hesitation and behaviour changes at scale. The lesson is not to give everything away. It is to know which small friction is quietly capping your growth.
The jump in listings Depop reported after removing seller fees in the UK and US
What to do about it
Depop is spending its fee revenue to buy supply and momentum, and the businesses paying attention will ask what their own handbrake is costing them.