How I Became an “Evil” Depop Reseller To Pay Rent

Hey y’all, I’m Elle, and apparently I’m now part of the fashion villains in the industry. That’s right, I’m a Depop reseller. I made this decision after earning only $15k in 2024 and now struggle to find a job. I have two college degrees and over $40k in student loans, and I still get told I need a “real job.” Honestly, I’d laugh if it weren’t so exhausting. Like, what’s more real than doing your absolute best to stay afloat in a system that feels like it was built to chew you up and spit you out? Today, I wanted to give you the behind-the-scenes look into what reselling looks like for someone poor, neurodivergent, tired, and just trying to create a little safety net for herself in this flaming garbage heap of an economy.

The “Evil” Reseller Thing People Keep Yelling About

Let’s start with the whole “resellers are ruining secondhand fashion” narrative, which is the loudest take on the internet right now. I keep seeing people say that Depop resellers are evil, selfish, gentrifying thrift stores, stealing from the poor, promoting overconsumption, and hijacking secondhand culture in the name of profit, and wow, okay, that’s a lot to unpack.

My strategy as an evil reseller starts by looking for $1 femme Y2K tops out of a giant bin at a Goodwill outlet, cleaning them, photographing them, writing up a listing, paying all the platform and shipping fees, and then making maybe $7 off it. But, I am aware that resellers are out here bragging about massive markups and showing off warehouse hauls while sourcing aggressively. But that’s not me. I’m not sweeping clean racks at a community thrift shop, I’m not flexing thousand-dollar months, nor buying up all the second-hand fashion finds in my neighborhood. It’s actually hard, scrappy work to pay rent that I try to do as ethically and sustainably as possible.

What Actually Goes Down at the Thrift Store

I’ve worked in thrift stores before, as an assistant manager in my hometown in Illinois, and I also worked at a donation-based shop in Montana near Yellowstone. I’ve seen what happens behind the curtain that most people don’t realize, like seeing how a huge percentage of donated clothes never even hit the sales floor. And we’re talking fifty percent or more going unsold. So when people say I’m taking clothing from someone else, what they don’t know is that the clothing I’m buying is usually one step away from the landfill. Literally. I’m rehoming what the system was already discarding, but given another chance at the bins.

It is also worth mentioning that thrift stores don’t have barcodes that track who buys what, or whether the $3 tank top went to someone in need or someone who just liked the print. It’s not some curated socialist program to ensure that local residents get affordable fashion; it’s a general business with their doors open for profit maximization.

Owners often have no clue who is buying, why they are buying, or where they came from. They can decide to price things high if there is more demand for goods, they throw things away when it is dirty, and they don’t always have community equity in mind when they place items in the store.

But let’s talk money real quick because people think reselling is some magical goldmine. I spend about a dollar per item. Depop takes two more in fees. Add in another dollar for random costs like tape and tissue paper. That’s four bucks total. I usually price items around eleven dollars and hope they sell for ten, but people don’t buy instantly, so I often send extra offers and discounts.

After all is said and done, I take home maybe seven or eight dollars per item. I’m selling ten items a week right now, just getting started, and that’s about three hundred bucks a month. My goal is to work up to fifty to a hundred items a month as I keep listing. It’s not glam. It’s just consistent, flexible income while I try to stay above water.

Why Reselling Actually Works for Me

Here’s the thing. I’m neurodivergent. I have social anxiety. I can’t do your classic 9-to-5, and I’ve tried. My brain doesn’t work like that. I need quiet, alone time, flexible hours, and the ability to focus on something I love. That “something” happens to be vintage clothing and sustainability. Reselling lets me work around my mental health, avoid a boss breathing down my neck, and build a creative little business from my room. My schedule is weird, I work from 10 to 12, then a break, then 4 to 11, but it works for me. And yeah, I know it’s not traditional. That’s kind of the point.

I ask myself this too: Am I encouraging overconsumption? Maybe. But I don’t control what people buy. I offer secondhand clothing a second life, and that’s more sustainable than any fast fashion brand out there. I think redistributing clothing is honorable work, while the world is literally drowning in enough clothes to last six generations. So, if I can help keep a few of those pieces in use while also covering my rent, why is that so villainized?

But I am aware that this isn’t mutual aid, nor some systemic fix. I’m not pretending it is. But reselling lets me survive while contributing in a small, low-impact way. It’s imperfect, but so is everything else under late-stage capitalism.

You Want Hypocrisy? Let’s Talk Hypocrisy

You know who else is a reseller? Goodwill. Salvation Army. Thrift stores. They get stuff for free, pay little to their workers, rake in profits, and even have CEO salaries. But when I do it, a broke Latina woman trying to keep the lights on, it’s suddenly evil? I really don’t think the math ain’t matching when billion-dollar resale giants are not criminalized.

And I say this after being a community organizer. I’ve done unpaid activism for years, underpaid work…. fought for my community. I’ve led protests, written guides, spoken out, and stayed broke the whole time. My car kept breaking down, my savings stayed at $2K max, and rent kept going up. So I had to make a choice, and I chose to take care of myself. I decided to build something that uplifts my personality, aligns with my values, and pays my bills. That’s not inherently evil or selfish when I don’t even make a livable wage from my efforts.

The Thrift Shift- Exploring the Thrift and Resale Boom interview by Ava Pace

Before You Judge, Maybe Get Curious First?

So maybe the next time you’re about to call someone like me evil, ask a different question. Not “Why is she reselling?” but “Why does she have to go through all of this just to get by?” Why are people with degrees, talent, and drive turning to apps just to pay rent? Why do we villainize the poor for trying to build something from scraps, instead of questioning why the system gives us nothing to begin with?

Yes, I’m a reseller. But I’m also a rehomer. A storyteller. A small business owner. A girl with big dreams and very little money. And I’ll keep doing this ethically, intentionally, and with love, because it lets me live a life I’m proud of, even if that life doesn’t look traditional.

XOXO,

Elle