Depop's New Shipping Terms: Orders Will Be Auto-Canceled If Not Shipped On Time

Etsy-owned Depop has updated their terms of service, using the threat of automatically canceled orders to "encourage" sellers to ship items quickly.

Buyers were notified of the change in an email touting a less stressful, more confidence boosting experience, starting February 24th.

Buy with confidence

Heads up – we’re updating our shipping and protection policies to make shopping on Depop even more reliable and stress-free.

This is what’s changing:
As of February 24 2025, sellers will have a set timeframe to ship an order. If they don’t ship in time, it will be automatically cancelled and the buyer will receive a full refund.

How does this benefit you?

• You can shop with confidence - If sellers don’t ship your item in time, we’ll cancel the order for you and give you your money back.
• You’ll save time- You can relax as we’ll keep you up to date with the status of your order and you’ll no longer have to manually dispute any unshipped purchases.
• You’ll get your items even faster - With tighter shipping deadlines and reminders, sellers will be motivated to ship quickly – speeding up your delivery.

But the change is likely not going to be less stressful for sellers - especially since the updated terms don't actually specify what the set timeframe will be.

Here's what the old policy said:

Dispatch your item to the buyer’s address as soon as possible and in accordance with any timelines set out in your shop policies.

In order to qualify for Depop Protection in the UK, US or Australia, you must be able to demonstrate that your item was shipped in accordance with the timelines set out in the Depop Protection Programme for sellers.

And here's the new policy:

Dispatch your item to the buyer’s address as soon as possible and in accordance with any timelines set out in your shop policies. If you are based in the US and fail to ship your item within a reasonable time, your order may be automatically cancelled and refunded.

In order to qualify for Depop Protection in the UK, US or Australia, you must be able to demonstrate that your item was shipped in accordance with the timelines set out in the Depop Protection Programme for sellers.

The Shop Policies have an option for the seller to enable Next Day Dispatch, so it makes sense that the first sentence is just telling sellers if they have that enabled, they'll need to follow that timeline - but that part didn't change.

And the Depop Protection Program says in order to qualify sellers have to ship within 5 days from the transaction, but that part of the terms didn't change either and that timeframe also is not new - the Internet Archive Wayback Machine shows that's been the case since at least 2023.

Importantly, that timeframe only applies to the part about criteria for the shipment to qualify for the Depop Protection Program, it does not say this new auto-cancellation policy will use the same timeframe.

That leaves the only part that is actually new still very vague and ambiguous - it just says if you "fail to ship within a reasonable time" but buyers, sellers, and Depop themselves could all have very different ideas about what constitutes "reasonable."

I've scoured the other help pages on Depop's site and at time of publishing do not see anything that actually specifies the set shipping timeframe that will go into effect next month.

And apparently it's a mystery to many users as well with one post in the Depop subReddit having over 100 responses looking for the answer what should be a very simple question.

The Depop US Shipping guide page was also updated 8 days ago to add the following sections:

My buyer entered the wrong address:
If your buyer would like the item to be sent to another address from the one listed on your receipt or they made a mistake or entered the wrong address, you will need to refund them and ask them to update their address inside the Depop app.

If you send the item to a different address other than the one stated on the Depop receipt, you will void your Depop Protection.

Once you have refunded your buyer and they have changed their address you can re-list the item so they can purchase it again. The Depop selling fee that was taken for this sale has been automatically refunded to you as well.

Proof of postage:

As a seller, it is always your responsibility to send items tracked and keep proof of postage. This is because the seller is the only party that can prove that the item has been sent properly.

This is really important because if something goes wrong (like the buyer claiming that their item hasn't arrived), you must have proof that you've shipped it off properly.

Without tracking, the buyer and Depop have no way of determining whether or not the item was sent, or where it was sent. So please send that parcel tracked!

But again, there is no mention of any specific set time frame for shipping on that page.

The move to "encourage" faster shipping on Depop is no surprise as both shipping speed and price have been a major focus for "enhancing" the buyer experience on the main Etsy website in the last year as well but keeping the details secrete doesn't seem like the best way to win hearts and minds or assuage user concerns about how this change might impact their selling.

Depop has not responded to request for comment and clarification of the new policy at this time, but stay tuned for updates in this developing story.

In the meantime, let us know in the comments below what you think a "reasonable" timeframe for dispatching Depop orders should be!