You list 15 items on a Sunday afternoon. Within hours, two of them have likes stacking up, showing on explore pages, getting shared. The other 13 sit at zero. Same photos, same effort, same account. What happened?
Depop's algorithm happened. And understanding how it decides which listings to surface and which to bury is the difference between a shop that grows and one that treads water forever. The good news: unlike platforms that keep their ranking logic totally opaque, Depop is surprisingly transparent about what they reward. They've even published some of their ranking criteria. Most sellers just never read it.
Three Signals That Control Everything
When someone searches Depop or scrolls the Explore page, the algorithm makes split-second decisions about what to show. It weighs three things, roughly in this order:
- Relevance: Does the listing match what the buyer is looking for? Keywords, descriptions, hashtags.
- Freshness: How recently was the listing created or updated? Newer gets priority.
- Engagement: How much interaction has the listing received? Likes, saves, comments, shares.
Behind these three sits a fourth factor that's harder to pin down: seller reliability. Shops with consistent sales, fast response times, and strong reviews get a baseline boost across all their listings. Think of it as a trust multiplier on everything else.
Freshness: Depop's Version of "Share Your Closet"
If you've used Poshmark, you know sharing. On Depop, the equivalent is refreshing. The algorithm favors recently listed or recently updated items. As a listing ages, it sinks in search results and Explore placement. The platform is built to reward sellers who keep their inventory feeling current.
But here's where it gets nuanced — and where a lot of sellers waste time.
New Listings vs. Refreshed Listings
There's a meaningful difference. A brand new listing — completely created from scratch — gets the biggest freshness boost. The algorithm treats it as new inventory entering the marketplace and gives it initial exposure to see how buyers respond.
An edited listing (changing the description, swapping a photo, updating the price) gets a smaller freshness signal. The algorithm acknowledges the update but doesn't treat it as brand new inventory. It's a nudge, not a launch.
This creates a strategic tension. Relisting an item — deleting the old listing and creating a new one with the same photos — gives you the full freshness boost. But it wipes all existing likes, comments, and engagement. If a listing already has 30 likes and decent traction, nuking it to start over might lose more than it gains.
Relist items that have been sitting with low engagement for 2+ weeks. Don't relist items that already have meaningful engagement (10+ likes). For those, minor edits every few days keep the freshness signal alive without sacrificing what you've built.
How Often to Refresh
The sweet spot most sellers land on: refresh your active listings 1-2 times daily. Morning (8-10 AM) and evening (6-8 PM) catch the two highest-traffic windows — people browsing before work or school and again during evening downtime.
For slow-moving items, a full relist every 10-14 days makes sense. For fast-turnover categories like sneakers and trending streetwear, weekly relisting keeps you competitive.
Don't over-refresh. Editing a listing every 30 minutes doesn't stack the freshness bonus. The algorithm isn't that granular. Twice a day at strategic times is plenty.
Engagement: The First Hour Decides a Lot
Here's a data point that should change how you think about listing: items that receive at least 3 likes in the first hour after listing are roughly 2.2x more likely to sell. The early engagement tells the algorithm "this is something people want" and triggers additional visibility. The algorithm literally amplifies what's already working.
This creates a virtuous cycle for some listings and a death spiral for others. High early engagement leads to more visibility, which leads to more engagement, which leads to more visibility. Low early engagement gets you buried, which means less visibility, which means even less engagement.
Seeding Early Engagement
Some sellers "seed" engagement by being active on the platform right before and after listing. Like and comment on other sellers' items. Follow people in your niche. This activity sends signals that you're an active participant, and it often triggers reciprocal engagement when those sellers check out your profile in return.
It sounds like a hack, but it's really just how social platforms work. Be present and people find you. Be silent and the algorithm treats you like you don't exist.
What Counts as Engagement
- Likes/saves: The primary engagement signal. More likes = more visibility.
- Comments: Weighted slightly more than likes because they require more effort.
- Shares: When someone shares your listing externally.
- Purchases: The ultimate engagement signal. A sold listing tells the algorithm everything it needs to know about your shop.
- Profile visits: If people click through to your profile from a listing, it signals interest in your shop as a whole.
Photos Drive Engagement
Depop is a visual platform. More than most marketplaces, the photo IS the listing. Bright natural light, a human element (modeled shots outperform flat-lays by roughly 35% on Depop), and a clean but interesting background. The Depop buyer scrolls fast. You have maybe a second to make them stop.
Depop also supports video, and listings with video see up to 40% more engagement. A 15-second clip showing fit, drape, or detail. Not a slideshow. Not a still image with music. Actual video of the item being worn, held, or used.
One advanced move: rotate your lead photo every 7 days or so. Even without relisting, a different first image makes the listing look fresh in search results and can re-capture attention from buyers who scrolled past it before.
Relevance: The Gatekeeper
Before freshness or engagement even come into play, the algorithm has to decide your listing is relevant to the search. This happens through your description, hashtags, and the way Depop categorizes your item.
Descriptions That Rank
Write descriptions like a buyer would search. If you're selling a pair of Levi's 501s, include the exact terms someone would type: "Levi 501 vintage high waist light wash." Add details about fit, era, condition, and size. The more specific terms you include naturally, the more search queries your listing qualifies for.
Avoid vague descriptors that nobody searches. "Super cute top" matches zero buyer intent. "Y2K babydoll top sheer mesh pink" matches plenty of it.
Hashtags: Use All Five
Depop gives you 5 hashtag slots. Use every single one. Mix specific and broad:
- 1-2 hashtags for the specific item: #levi501, #vintagedenim
- 1-2 hashtags for the style/trend: #y2kfashion, #90sgrunge
- 1 hashtag for the broad category: #vintagejeans or #streetwear
Trending hashtags matter on Depop more than most platforms. When a style like "quiet luxury" or "coquette" is trending, tagging relevant items with those terms gets you into feeds of buyers actively browsing that aesthetic. But don't spam irrelevant trends. Tagging a basic hoodie as #coquette damages your credibility and confuses the algorithm.
The Seller Trust Score
Depop quietly tracks seller-level metrics that influence how all your listings perform. Think of it as a reputation layer sitting under everything else.
- Response time: Sellers who reply to buyer messages quickly see measurably more visibility. One seller reported an 18% visibility increase after reducing average response time from 5 hours to 40 minutes.
- Sales history: Shops with consistent sales track records get preferential treatment. A shop with 100 completed sales ranks higher than a brand-new shop, all else equal.
- Reviews: Positive reviews build seller authority. Negative reviews or disputes erode it.
- Activity: Sellers who use the platform regularly — listing, refreshing, engaging — are treated as more active and given more exposure than dormant shops.
You can't game this overnight. It's the accumulation of being a consistent, responsive, active seller. But knowing it's tracked means the small things — answering messages promptly, shipping quickly, maintaining your profile — aren't optional.
Getting on the Explore Page
Explore is Depop's curated discovery feed, and landing there can send massive traffic to a listing. It's part algorithm, part editorial — Depop's team curates some of it, while the algorithm fills the rest based on what's trending, what's getting early engagement, and what fits a buyer's browsing patterns.
You can't apply for Explore placement. But the listings that tend to show up share common traits:
- Strong first photo with a modeled shot or styled flat-lay
- Items in currently trending categories or aesthetics
- High early engagement (likes in the first hours after listing)
- Complete descriptions with relevant hashtags
- Sellers with good track records and active profiles
The Explore page is also personalized. Two buyers browsing Explore at the same time see different content based on their history, likes, and searches. This means your listing might be on Explore for vintage streetwear enthusiasts but not for cottagecore shoppers. The algorithm matches your item to the audience most likely to engage with it.
When to List and Refresh
Timing affects how much initial engagement a listing receives, which affects everything downstream. List when your target buyers are actively browsing and you catch the first-hour engagement wave at its peak.
- Weekday mornings: 8-10 AM (commute browsing)
- Weekday evenings: 6-9 PM (post-work/school wind-down)
- Sundays: 2-5 PM (peak leisure browsing day on Depop)
- Avoid: Late night, early morning, and weekday mid-afternoon when traffic dips
These are broad patterns. Your specific audience might differ. A shop selling trendy going-out clothes might see Saturday afternoon perform better than Sunday. Check your own analytics for patterns. Depop provides some traffic data in the seller dashboard — use it.
Working With the Algorithm, Not Against It
The Depop algorithm isn't trying to punish you. It's trying to show buyers the most relevant, most engaging, most trustworthy listings. Your job is to make your listings easy for the algorithm to recommend.
That means: list consistently, refresh strategically, write descriptions buyers can find, take photos that stop the scroll, and respond to messages like your visibility depends on it — because it does.
None of this is complicated. Most of it just requires showing up regularly and paying attention. The sellers who treat Depop like a passive listing service wonder why nothing sells. The sellers who treat it like the social platform it is tend to do just fine.