Depop Expands Lock It In Binding Offer Test
Etsy-owned Depop is expanding their test of Locked In Offers in effort to solve long-standing marketplace problem of balancing flexibility for buyers with binding, guaranteed paid sales for sellers.
The company provide the following information on their Make Offers help and policies page when they began testing the feature in October:
For sellers, Depop said:
Are offers binding?
Between 14 - 28 October, some buyers will be shown the option to make their offer binding as part of a test we are running.For some sellers, when they accept an offer (if a buyer has selected the ‘binding’ option), the sale will go straight through as the buyer will not have to go back and complete the transaction.
For the majority of our users, outside of this test, offers aren’t binding. That means:
- A buyer whose offer you’ve accepted still needs to buy the item at their offer price to complete the transaction
- You can accept as many offers as you like
While buyers were told:
‘Binding offer’ feature
We are doing some testing on a new feature called binding offers. As part of this test, you may be presented with the following two options:
- Lock it in/Binding Offer/Priority Offer - if the seller accepts, the item is yours and you will be charged immediately
- Keep it flex/Non Binding Offer/Standard Offer - the seller has 24 hours to accept or decline the offer. If there’s no response within the 24 hours, the offer expires. If the seller accepts, you have 24 hours to buy the item.
Buyers who choose the Lock It In option are required to enter payment information before submitting their offer and sellers are notified when an offer received is binding.
Once a binding offer has been accepted, the buyer is charged immediately, just like they would be for a "buy it now" purchase.
The buyer's payment method will have a "hold" placed on the funds which will then become a completed payment if the seller accepts the offer or will be released if the offer is denied or not accepted within 24 hours.
For now it appears buyers are still offered the option of Lock It In or Keep It Flex, so sellers may still receive some non-binding offers and it will be interesting to see if Depop keeps it as an optional feature or moves to making all offers binding in the future.
Users in the Depop subreddit are posting mostly positive responses, with some saying the feature is long overdue on the platform.
This is a win, and I'm not certain why it's taken DP this long to implement this. PM has had it for ages.
Like... yes, if I make an offer, that's what I'm willing to pay for the thing. I don't want to have to go back in the app and "actually" buy it; I don't know if, after the offer is accepted, someone else can still snap it out from under me if I'm not hovering over the app and don't get the notification of offer acceptance right away.
Take my money, close the listing, I'll message the seller if I want to thank them or request speedy delivery, and we're all good.
Others worried that buyers might try to cancel after the offer is accepted if they didn't understand how the binding offer works - a problem that has come up on other platforms as well.
I just accepted an offer and it immediately disappeared. I went back to the homepage and it showed I sold the item, so this must have been what happened!
I'm wary of people wanting to cancel because they didn't realize they would actually be charged...hopefully that won't be an issue.
I was having this exact issue on ebay when they switched over to requiring immediate payment on offers. Buyers just don't read!
And at least one user expressed concerns that their funds were held even after the item was sold to someone else - which is not a great buyer experience, especially since Depop says it "can take up to a few days depending on your bank" for that authorization hold to be released.
I bought something with this today they sold to someone else and it still took my money it says the item is sold but doesn’t appear on my purchased so i assume it was sold to someone else and i still haven’t gotten my money back for it and depop support doesn’t have anything for that can anyone help?
Similar concerns were cited by buyers when eBay began their multi-year effort to "solve unpaid items on the platform" - a process that eBay has admitted has taken longer than expected due to the difficulties of "unwind[ing] 28 years of buyer behavior."
Liz Morton
Depop doesn't have quite that long history of buyer behavior to change, but they must still tread carefully with the introduction of this new feature to avoid adding too much friction that may drive buyers away.
What do you think of Depop's Locked In Binding Offers test? Let us know in the comments below!
