Depop's CEO Told Me How to Sell My Clothes Successfully—and It Worked

I'm not going to lie—selling your clothes online is no joke. First you have to sift through your closet to find the items that are still in good condition and that don't feel too dated, so basically what's "sellable". And when it comes to actually listing the items you decide to sell, well, that can take hours if you're being detailed about photographing, describing, and pricing them accordingly. So it pretty much comes as no surprise when most of us end up taking our best clothes to a consignment store and hoping for the best deal.

During my most recent closet clean out, I filled up four large shopping totes with clothes, bags, and shoes that I decided I no longer needed. But I wanted to try my hand at selling a selection of my clothes on Depop before I took any of it to a consignment store. I'll admit it—I opted to sell certain items online so I could name my own prices because I was just too attached to let some of them go too easily. I ended up learning how to sell on Depop super successfully, and it all came down to one simple piece of advice the company's CEO, Maria Raga, told me to do when listing my items on the app.

While, yes, having good product descriptions and knowing which brands and styles will sell best are important, Raga's number one piece of advice for selling your clothes on an app like Depop was to take good photos. "The better the photo, the quicker it sells," she told me. "It's about the aesthetics." Anyone who's ever used the app to sell or shop knows that imagery is what catches your eye when scrolling through the listings. Raga actually made the comparison between Depop and Instagram, which totally clicked for me—they're both designed so that imagery is what matters most. Think about it. What kind of image usually gets you to double-tap or take a pause in your feed? Images with people in them that feature great lighting and you can imagine yourself wearing the same or similar outfit.

With that in mind, I put a little extra effort into photographing what I was selling. Instead of simply hanging a shirt against a white wall, I styled each and every item I listed in a creative, trend-focused way. The extra effort I put into the styling really paid off too. In the first week I used Depop, I sold four of the 10 items I listed. I highly suggest shooting your photos in the same way that you would for your Instagram feed. I promise that with the extra time spent paying attention to imagery, you'll end up selling more than you would have otherwise.

Below shop all the items that are catching my eye on Depop right now.

Now get an inside look at what our editors are wearing right now.