Reselling News: Depop's Sale Closes July 30, and USPS Is Catching Padded Package Weights

Two developments worth a reseller's attention this week, both checked against reporting from Value Added Resource. One is a date finally getting locked in. The other is a quiet enforcement change that can turn a shipping shortcut into a surprise charge.

eBay's Depop purchase now has a closing date

eBay's roughly 1.2 billion dollar purchase of Depop from Etsy is now set to close on July 30. eBay and Etsy signed a second amendment to the deal on July 12 that narrows eBay's ability to walk away, and the UK Competition and Markets Authority cleared the transaction on July 15. The revised terms also raised the potential business disruption fee for a qualifying termination to 158 million dollars, which is another signal that both sides expect this to go through. The details are laid out by Value Added Resource.

We flagged the acquisition itself last week, so here is what is actually new: it now has a real closing date rather than a vague quarter. For sellers, the near-term answer is still the same. Nothing changes on Depop the day it closes. Depop is expected to keep its name and platform, and eBay has not announced any merging of accounts, listings, or fees. What is worth watching is whether eBay eventually connects Depop's younger fashion audience to its much larger buyer base. If you sell apparel, that is a reason to keep an eye on Depop as a channel, not a reason to change anything today.

USPS is now billing sellers who overstate package weight

Here is the one that can cost you money this month. USPS Automated Package Verification, the system that weighs and measures your package in transit, is catching sellers who entered a heavier weight than the package actually is. When APV finds a mismatch, it charges the difference between what you paid and what the label should have cost. Value Added Resource reported on sellers learning this the hard way.

The reason this is happening now is a pricing quirk in the new Ground Advantage rates. In some cases a 3 pound package prices lower than a lighter one, because Ground Advantage rounds up by the pound, so a 1 pound 1 ounce parcel is billed as 2 pounds and a 2 pound 1 ounce parcel is billed as 3 pounds. Some sellers noticed the anomaly and started declaring light packages as 3 pounds to grab the cheaper rate. APV weighs the real package and bills the correction, so the shortcut does not hold.

What to do: enter the true weight and dimensions on every label, and charge the buyer accordingly for the service you actually use. If you have been rounding your declared weights up or down to game a rate, stop, because the system now reconciles it for you and sends the bill. Accurate weights also protect your numbers, since a flip only tells you the truth when the shipping cost on your spreadsheet matches the shipping cost USPS charges.

The takeaway

The Depop news is a watch-and-wait item, and the USPS news is a fix-it-today item. Lock in accurate weights on your labels this week so APV has nothing to correct, and keep Depop on your radar as a possible apparel channel without changing your routine over it. The unglamorous habit of measuring and weighing honestly is what keeps a reseller's margins real. We break down how shipping and fees flow through to profit on every flip inside The Income Lab.