How to Find and Source Vintage Clothing to Sell on Depop

How to Find and Source Vintage Clothing to Sell on Depop

Depop has become a go-to marketplace for fashion lovers seeking unique, one-of-a-kind vintage pieces. For resellers, this creates a massive opportunity to build a thriving business. But success hinges on two key factors: knowing where to find quality vintage clothing and having the tools to manage and scale your business efficiently.

Finding the right inventory can feel like a treasure hunt, while the administrative tasks of listing, managing, and cross-posting can quickly become overwhelming. Many resellers hit a wall, unable to grow further without help.

This guide will walk you through the best strategies for sourcing vintage clothing for Depop. We'll cover everything from thrift store secrets to online goldmines. We will also show you how to overcome the logistical nightmares of scaling your business, allowing you to focus on sourcing more products and expanding your offerings.

Where to Find Clothes to Sell on Depop: Top Sourcing Hotspots

The foundation of any successful Depop shop is a steady stream of desirable inventory. Knowing where to look is the first step. Vintage clothing can be sourced from a variety of places, including thrift stores, online marketplaces, auctions, flea markets, estate sales, and wholesalers.

Thrift Stores

Local thrift shops can be excellent sources of vintage finds for vintage clothing sellers. However, scoring the best pieces requires a strategic approach, not just luck.

To find vintage clothing in thrift shops, it's crucial to go often and on the right days. Plan your visits around shipment days to get first access to new stock. The best way to learn this schedule is to ask the store staff for information on when they receive shipments.

When thrifting for vintage clothing, always have a plan. Clearly define the items you are looking for before you start your search. This focus helps you sift through racks more efficiently and avoid getting overwhelmed.

Don't limit yourself to your immediate area. Be sure to explore local thrift shops in other cities, as different locations can yield different styles and treasures. And always be prepared; carry extra Ikea bags in your car and have cash on hand for quick purchases.

Finally, remember that items sourced from thrift stores may have stains or other damage. Carefully inspect every item before purchasing to ensure it's in sellable condition or can be easily repaired.

Flea Markets

Flea markets are another fantastic source for unique vintage pieces. The key to success here is timing. Showing up early means you get first dibs on the best items before other buyers arrive.

Conversely, some of the best deals can be found at the end of the day and at the end of the flea market season. At these times, dealers are often looking to unload stock and are more open to negotiation, allowing vintage sellers to acquire inventory at a lower cost.

Estate Sales

Estate sales can be a goldmine for vintage clothing sellers. They offer the potential to find a lot of vintage clothes in one place, often from a single person's well-preserved collection.

To stay ahead of the competition, get on the email list of local estate sale management companies. This will keep you on top of upcoming sales in your area so you can plan accordingly and be one of the first through the door.

Auctions

Auctions, both in-person and online, are another valuable source for vintage clothing. To find vintage clothing at auctions, sign up to receive notifications for auctions in your area.

These events can take place in person or on online auction sites like eBay and MaxSold. Online auctions provide the convenience of sourcing from home, but in-person auctions can sometimes offer hidden gems with less competition.

Wholesalers

For resellers looking to buy in larger quantities, vintage wholesalers are an excellent option. Vintage clothing sellers can sign up as a trade customer with wholesalers to gain access to vintage in bulk and at wholesale pricing.

Wholesalers generally get their stock by picking from the extra inventory from thrift stores or from collection boxes, giving you access to a curated, high-volume supply of vintage goods.

Tips for Identifying and Selecting Quality Vintage Pieces

Sourcing is only half the battle. To truly succeed, you need to develop an eye for what makes a piece valuable and desirable. This means learning how to identify and date items accurately.

Become a Vintage Detective

To find the best vintage clothing, learn to identify the time period of different pieces. You can do this by studying old fashion magazines and reading blogs dedicated to vintage fashion. This research helps you recognize silhouettes, fabrics, and styles from different eras.

Learn to date pieces by examining specific features. Look closely at things like tags, buttons, zipper placements, the cut of the garment, and its place of manufacture. These details are clues that can help you pinpoint the decade an item is from.

Remain Selective and Inspect Carefully

When sourcing your inventory, it's important to remain selective. Constantly think about what you are attracted to and, more importantly, what your target customers on Depop will like to see. A curated shop with a clear aesthetic is more appealing than a random assortment of items.

Always carefully inspect items before purchasing them. Check for stains, holes, broken zippers, missing buttons, and other signs of damage. While some flaws can be fixed, others may make an item unsellable. Knowing the difference is key to protecting your investment.

Sourcing for Depop Online and Through Other Channels

Beyond physical locations, there are several other clever ways to source inventory for your Depop shop without leaving your home.

Online Marketplaces and Classifieds

You can find vintage clothing on online marketplaces and classifieds. Be sure to check sites like Craigslist for hidden treasures. You might also find listings for garage sales, moving sales, and estate sales on these sites, giving you a lead on in-person sourcing opportunities.

Consignment Programs

Consider setting up consignment programs to buy or consign vintage items directly from customers or your site visitors. Consignment is a particularly low-risk arrangement that involves paying the owner of a vintage item only if you, the vintage seller, successfully sell the item. This allows you to expand your inventory with no upfront cost.

Hiring a Picker

If you find that you don't have enough time for sourcing, you can outsource the task by hiring a picker. A picker for vintage clothing sellers is a person who simply makes the rounds to thrift shops on a regular basis, finding items on your behalf based on your specific needs and style.

Private Collectors

As you build your network in the vintage community, you may encounter private collectors. These individuals may be interested in working with you to unload some of their stock, providing you with access to rare and high-quality pieces that aren't available through traditional sourcing channels.

How to Find Vintage Clothes on Depop as a Buyer

To be a great seller, you need to think like a buyer. Understanding how users search for vintage on Depop can inform your listing strategy, from the keywords you use to how you describe your items. Here are some key tips that buyers use, which you can leverage as a seller.

Master the Search Function

Depop’s search function takes things very literally. Buyers are encouraged to be as specific as possible when searching for items. This means as a seller, your descriptions and titles need to be rich with keywords.

Buyers often try searching for different variations of the item they’re trying to find. If you're selling a "1970s floral prairie dress," make sure you include terms like "70s," "cottagecore," "boho," and "hippie" to capture a wider range of searches.

If buyers are not searching for a specific item, tailoring their search to a specific aesthetic is a great way to discover new garments. Use popular aesthetic keywords like "Y2K," "goth," "preppy," or "minimalist" in your listings if they apply.

Leverage the Depop Algorithm

The Depop platform learns from user behavior. Buyers are advised to like things as much as they can. The more they interact with posts, the better Depop will understand their style interests.

This interaction populates a buyer's “Suggested For You” list at the top of their homepage. This list is a gold mine for finding one-of-a-kind pieces at reasonable prices. To get your items into these suggestions, you need to create engaging listings with clear photos and detailed, keyword-rich descriptions.

Buyers can also improve their recommendations by setting their sizes and telling Depop about brands they like. Therefore, always include accurate sizing and brand information in your listings.

Foster Community and Discovery

Depop is a social marketplace. Buyers follow shops and stylists they admire. They might look through their Instagram feed to see if their friends or style icons have a Depop account.

If a buyer finds a shop they like, they can look to see who that shop is following to find similar shops. As a seller, actively engaging with other accounts and building a community around your brand can increase your visibility significantly.

The Challenge of Scaling Your Depop Business

Finding great vintage pieces is an exciting part of the job. But as your resale business grows, so do the administrative tasks. Many successful resellers hit a wall, finding themselves unable to scale further without help.

Listing on one platform is time-consuming enough. Expanding your resale business to a second or third platform like Poshmark, eBay, or Mercari to maximize your reach can quickly become a logistical nightmare.

This growth creates new challenges. Resellers start spending more time creating listings, managing inventory across multiple marketplaces, sharing their closet, sending offers, and tracking sales. Every hour spent on these manual tasks is an hour you aren't sourcing new products or focusing on strategy.

Managing Poshmark and Depop—along with other channels—creates a mountain of administrative work that can stifle growth. Listing, delisting, sharing, and tracking inventory across platforms becomes a full-time job in itself. This is where automation becomes essential.

How We Help You Scale Your Vintage Clothing Business

We provide an all-in-one solution built to help your resale business accelerate its growth and scale with ease, whether you sell on Depop, Poshmark, eBay, Mercari, or all of them. Our platform simplifies and automates running a resale business, giving you back time to grow and focus on what matters.

Instead of juggling 3-5 different programs, our platform offers one seamless solution. We automate everything from listing creation and cross-posting to delisting sold items and sending offers, eliminating the burden of manual tasks.

Are you tired of spending hours on admin instead of sourcing? Start your free 7-day trial of our platform and see how automation can transform your business.

Sell Smarter and Faster

Our platform is designed to save you time. You can turn photos into listings instantly. Just upload your photos, and our AI will create complete listings with SEO-optimized titles, descriptions, prices, tags, and item specifics.

Our user FabFam has cut their listing time by more than half. They can take photos, voice-to-text details, and let our platform handle the rest—background removal, form completion, and listing generation. By the time an item is put away, the listing is ready to go live.

With our multi-store support, you can publish your items across all your marketplaces with one click, effortlessly reaching more buyers without ever switching tabs.

Save Time with Automation

We help you boost visibility and maximize sales through powerful automation. Our system can automatically share your products on Poshmark to refresh your listings and move them to the top of search results.

One of our most indispensable features is auto-delisting. When an item sells on one platform, our system instantly delists it from all other marketplaces, preventing overselling and saving you from painful order cancellations. As user AlistairBP says, it's a feature he "couldn't live without."

You can also keep your inventory fresh by automatically relisting stale products, ensuring they stay at the top of search results (coming soon for our Business plan).

Grow Your Business with Ease

As your operation expands, our management tools help you grow and scale. You can update and manage hundreds of listings in bulk with ease, from pricing updates to relisting.

Our powerful business analytics allow you to track sales, revenue, profit, and other key metrics from a single comprehensive dashboard. Keep accurate records with our built-in accounting tools, which categorize income, fees, and expenses to make tax time easier.

User TUFFNY cut down their admin time by at least 30% using our platform, which allowed them to source more products and expand their offerings. For businesses with teams, our multi-user account options allow you to give team members access and assign custom permissions (coming soon).

Stop drowning in spreadsheets and manual tasks. Try our platform for free for 7 days and let us handle the admin while you focus on growth.

Our Plans and Features

We offer two plans designed to meet the needs of resellers at different stages of their journey. Both come with a free 7-day trial, with no payment due to start.

Both our Basic and Business plans include powerful features like unlimited bulk background removal, a UPC barcode scanner, smart pricing suggestions, Poshmark sharing, and access to our platform via iOS, Android, and desktop web apps.

The Business plan includes everything in Basic, plus full automation features (coming soon), a complete resale accounting suite, and dedicated email, phone, and live chat support.

Start Growing Your Resale Business Today

Building a successful vintage clothing business on Depop requires a smart sourcing strategy and powerful tools to manage your growth. By exploring thrift stores, flea markets, and online sources, you can build a unique and desirable inventory.

But finding the clothes is just the beginning. As you scale, the administrative work of listing, cross-posting, and managing sales across platforms can become a major bottleneck, preventing you from focusing on sourcing and strategy.

That's where we come in. Our platform is designed to eliminate the manual work that holds resellers back. We automate your listings, sync your inventory, and provide the analytics you need to make smarter business decisions. Users have seen a 7x increase in sales and a 10x increase in their listing amount per hour.

Stop letting admin tasks stifle your growth. Let us handle the busywork so you can get back to the treasure hunt. Start your free 7-day trial today and unlock your resale business's full potential.