Social mobile shopping app and U.K. startup Depop has extended the reach of its marketplace by launching on Android.
Depop launched its pocket m-commerce offering on iOS in April last year, and says it’s racked up 200,000 downloads since then (it’s not breaking out active users at this point).
How many items have been sold via the mobile flea market since launch? Also around 200,000 — with a cumulative value of around five million Euros.
The startup tells TechCrunch the U.K. is its “priority market” at present, followed by Italy. Launching on Android is the next obvious step for any app seeking to expand its reach — especially in two such European markets where Android is the dominant mobile OS.
“A key factor in our decision to launch on Android was the demand from potential new users wanting to utilise the app, as well as requests from our existing community, who wanted to extend their customer reach,” said Runar Reistrup, CEO of Depop, in a statement.
There is of course bags of competition in the social mobile shopping app space where Depop plays, and plenty of regional flavour — with the likes of Shpock, Stuffle and Osom in Europe; Rumgr and Yardsale in the U.S., and Chile’s Vendly, to name a few — so it makes sense for Depop to stay focused on a select few of its strongest European markets for now.
Last fall the startup took in $1 million in seed funding from Red Circle Investments and other fashion-focused investors. It has also previously attracted €1 million in investment from Balderton Capital and Holtzbrinck Ventures.
As with all such ‘shop in your pocket’ startups, the basic premise is to simplify the selling process for a mobile use-case — taking away the hassle of granular listing forms (a la eBay and its born-on-the-desktop ilk), while simultaneously putting a feed of potential purchases right in mobile users’ pockets. Plugging into users’ social networks to further spread the products’ reach is the other plank of Depop et al’s m-commerce strategy.