Refinery 29 UK
Iâm scrolling through Depop when Iâm hit with an overwhelming sense of dĂŠjĂ vu. Iâm certain Iâve seen these cow print, Docs-esque boots somewhere else online. A quick reverse Google image search and Iâve cracked the case: Iâve seen these exact shoes before on AliExpress. AliExpress, part of tech company Alibaba Group, is a Chinese e-commerce site which sells cheap, mass-produced goods. You can get nearly anything on the site, from kitchen tongs shaped like cat paws to plush avocado keyrings, but the platform is arguably best known for its touting of fast fashion. With prices even lower than those on sites like PrettyLittleThing and Boohoo (this generic-looking ruched dress is a staggeringly cheap ÂŁ2.28), itâs easy to see why so many people are drawn to AliExpress. And because of its eye-wateringly low prices, AliExpress is not only a popular destination for trend-hungry buyers; itâs also a go-to for Depop sellers looking to make a quick buck through dropshipping. Dropshipping is a simple concept. The dropshipper will sniff out a trend, find a corresponding product from a site like AliExpress (Shein, Wish and ROMWE are other popular options), then create a listing for the item theyâre selling â usually for a drastically marked up price. For example: on AliExpress, those cow print boots are listed at ÂŁ17.36, yet on the listing I saw, they were ÂŁ42. Dropshipping is a simple concept. The dropshipper will sniff out a trend, find a corresponding product from a site like AliExpress, then create a listing for the item theyâre selling â usually for a drastically marked up price. When dropshippers get a buyer, they simply send the product directly to them from the wholesale site. They never even see or handle the items that theyâre flogging; as Sirin Kale put it for Wired, a dropshipper is simply âthe middleman in a globalised supply chainâ. Although the practice is banned on Depop for ethical reasons, that doesnât mean the app is totally free from dropshippers. I message the seller of the ÂŁ42 boots and ask where she sources her items â specifically, if the boots are from AliExpress or a similar site. She replies almost instantly: âI canât tell people about all my suppliers, itâs taken me years to find ethical suppliers. I wouldnât have a business anymore if I let people know my suppliers.â I tell her not to worry and press on with asking her about her thoughts on sustainability instead. She stops replying. While on the surface, dropshipping seems harmless enough â many justify it by arguing that buyers do ultimately receive the item as advertised, after purchasing it at an agreed price â itâs an incredibly insidious practice, especially when it takes place on Depop. Ordinarily, thereâs an onus on the consumer to resist buying into fast fashion but dropshipping complicates this. What happens when the consumer thinks theyâre buying ethically? Maddy, 19, is a Depop user based in Manchester. She bought a âvoting is hotâ T-shirt off a Depop seller for ÂŁ20, only to find the same item listed on AliExpress for ÂŁ2.11. âI figured this out when I looked up the original brand [the design is from independent business, Denimcratic] and found replicas on AliExpress,â Maddy says. âIt was cleverly done because the Depop listing I bought from did not specify a certain brand.â âItâs one thing to increase the price of an item for profit when youâve clearly stated the brand and its condition but itâs another thing to be disingenuous and dishonest about where the item is from,â she continues. âI understand why people are compelled to do this â the seller stated that she started doing it for economic reasons â but personally Iâm just convinced that it is very unethical to do this on an app that encourages stepping away from fast fashion.â This is ultimately why, in March 2020, Depop took a stand and banned dropshipping from the app, with revised guidelines stating that the practice clashes with its values of âquality, creativity and sustainabilityâ. Fabian Koenig, vice president of trust and safety at Depop, told Refinery29 that they are continuing to root out dropshippers on the platform by using âa combination of manual and automated enforcementâ and taking action on all user reports that they receive. With this in mind, users like Maddy might reasonably assume that a purchase on sustainability-focused Depop is, by default, an ethical purchase. But this isnât always the case. Dropshipping puts money back into fast fashion â an industry which is responsible for 8% of all carbon emissions and 20% of global water waste. Retailers like AliExpress tout the very worst kind of fast fashion too, because when dresses and jackets cost ÂŁ2, it raises serious questions about whether the workers producing these items are being treated fairly. Given that 93% of fast fashion brands arenât paying garment workers a living wage, it doesnât seem likely. Dropshipping is also hugely detrimental to small Depop businesses like Jazzy Garms. Twenty-two-year-old Jazmin is the Bristol-based seller behind the festival and rave clothing brand. âEverythingâs handmade to order and weâre as ethical and sustainable as we can be,â she tells me. Jazmin explains that her fledgling business has run into serious problems due to dropshipping on Depop, with one of her designs being stolen by an AliExpress manufacturer. âA few months ago I had a pair of my butterfly reflective flares ripped off on AliExpress. They just took all of my pictures from my photoshoot and mass-produced this awful copy of my trousers,â she says. âThere was basically nothing I could do.â Dropshipping puts money back into fast fashion â an industry which is responsible for 8% of all carbon emissions and 20% of global water waste. A few weeks later, the situation got worse for Jazmin when she saw Depop dropshippers begin to sell the AliExpress version of her trousers â priced on her shop at ÂŁ59 â for as little as ÂŁ13. âI messaged the sellers to take them down. I expected them to understand ⌠but they actually did the opposite,â she recalls. âThey basically didnât care at all. They were like, âYou should have copyrighted the design, itâs not my fault your design got copied.â And they just didnât take it down.â Fortunately, Jazmin has since managed to regain control of her design after registering it in the UK. âNow I have all the paperwork which makes it illegal to sell it, so whenever it pops up now I can just message the seller and legally they have to take it down,â she says. âBut itâs just a bit of a nightmare, really.â Amber, who lives in Devon, is another Depop seller whoâs had to contend with dropshippers on the app. But she says she understands the allure of flogging overpriced tat from AliExpress, as she used to do this herself. Amberâs shop took off as she grew savvier. âI would scroll through Instagram and save pictures of people wearing jewellery that I thought was trending, then I would try and find a version of that online. Or on AliExpress you can post a picture of an item and suppliers can contact you and offer to make it for you,â she explains. âSo, if you wanted to, you could basically rip off any design you wanted.â It seems likely that this is what happened to Jazmin and her butterfly-patterned flares. âI thought, This is really easy. Selling jewellery and making lots of money out of it seemed like such a great idea. Like, how could you go wrong? How could this be bad?â Amber continues. âI donât think dropshippers realise the ethics of what theyâre doing, because I never did.â Things clicked into place for Amber after she read an article about child slavery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. âI had that realisation of, like, Oh, this is what they mean when they say unethical,â she says. After reading up on the sweatshops behind fast fashion brands, Amber vowed to stop selling goods from AliExpress. âAfter that I definitely thought, I donât want anything to do with this, thereâs no way this is ethical in any sense.â Dropshippers are so far removed from the human consequences of their actions â especially since they never even handle the items theyâre selling â that itâs easy to see why so many continue with it despite its dodgy reputation. Itâs hard to see the true cost of dropshipping when youâre firing off orders from your bedroom, sweatshops out of sight and out of mind. But thatâs still no excuse. Happily, Depop is continuing to crack down on dropshipping. âWe are continually investing in building an even stronger Trust & Safety team, developing the right technology and tooling to detect and remove dropshipped items better and faster from the platform,â Koenig stresses. Itâs clear that Depop dropshippersâ days are numbered. In the meantime, dropshippers shouldnât skirt around or ignore difficult questions like the seller of those ÂŁ42 cow print boots (whose listing, thankfully, has now been taken down by Depop). They should face up to reality and make the necessary changes â just like Amber did. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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