Why Depop chose Photoroom and drove 1M+ listings with AI product photo solutions

Depop, the peer-to-peer fashion resale platform, integrated Photoroom's AI photo editing tools, (background removal, AI drop shadows, and image resizing) directly into its seller listing flow. The integration drove a 1.5% uplift in items listed during testing and has since been used on over 1 million listings, making Depop the first fashion resale marketplace to partner with Photoroom and embed its tools directly into the selling experience.

Life before Photoroom

• Most sellers list from home with no photography setup

• Inconsistent product images across millions of listings

• In-house background removal blurred edges and removed elements sellers wanted to keep

• No built-in tools to help sellers create better product photos

Life with Photoroom

• 1M+ listings created using Photoroom's built-in photo editing tools

• 1.5% uplift in items listed after adding AI-generated drop shadows

• Background removal, AI shadows, and image resizing embedded in sellers’ listing flow

"We'd been thinking about photo editing with AI for a long time, but we didn't have the knowledge or experience to do it well in-house. That's why we chose to partner with Photoroom. And it was collaborative from the start; our teams ideated and ran a hack week together, which helped us move faster."

— Jacek Rebkowski, Lead Product Designer at Depop

Depop has helped popularize secondhand fashion for over a decade. The platform connects millions of buyers and sellers across the UK, US, Australia, and beyond, turning closet cleanouts into a global marketplace. With an estimated 136 million items given a second life through the platform, Depop has become one of the defining names in fashion resale, particularly among younger sellers building side hustles or small businesses.

But there was a persistent gap between the platform's ambition and its sellers' reality. Depop handles roughly 400,000 daily listings. Most of those come from individuals photographing clothes in their bedrooms, on floors, or draped over chairs. This meant image inconsistency and low-quality photos across Depop’s marketplace. And in e‑commerce, photo quality directly impacts what sells.

Our State of GenAI in Marketplaces report reveals that 87% of online shoppers rely on product photography when making purchase decisions. For a platform built on peer-to-peer trust, where buyers can't touch or try on items, the quality of a listing photo can be the difference between a sale and a scroll-past.

Why Depop's in-house background removal tool wasn't enough

Depop's product team had been thinking about AI-powered photo editing for a long time. The idea was straightforward: give sellers tools to clean up their product shots, and the whole marketplace benefits. More polished listings mean more buyer trust and ultimately more sales.

They started by building background removal in-house. With AI already central to Depop's product, powering activities like search and pricing suggestions, image editing seemed like a natural extension of the platform's capabilities. But the results of building in-house fell short.

"We said at the end of the test that we ran that maybe the background removal that we implemented just wasn't good enough. And maybe it was blurring some edges and taking out things that users didn't want to take out."

— Josephine Noble-Smith, Engineering Manager at Depop

The tool struggled with the kind of images real sellers actually upload, which often include clothes shot on cluttered backgrounds and photos where foreground and background blurred together. The quality wasn't there, and sellers noticed.

Building competitive AI product photo editing requires deep expertise in image segmentation, product contextualization, and constant model improvement, which is often a resource-consuming project for marketplace engineering teams. So Depop’s team looked for a partner who specialized in e‑commerce product photography.

How AI shadows drove a 1.5% uplift in Depop listings

Depop partnered with Photoroom and ran a structured testing process, measured image results, and iterated across photos to find the right approach.

The first test: background removal only

The first test with Photoroom offered sellers background removal alone. The backgrounds came off cleanly, but the results were flat across Depop’s listing and sales success metrics. Adoption was low, with only 9% of eligible users posting with the background removed.

The Photoroom team identified why: without a shadow, products looked like they were floating in space, unnatural and unconvincing. An image that looks too artificially edited can undermine the trust that peer-to-peer selling depends on.

The second test: background removal + AI shadows

So they ran a second test, this time combining background removal with AI-generated shadows. The shadow gave each product a subtle sense of weight and place. Items looked clean, but also real.

This time, the numbers moved. Items listed saw a 1.5% uplift, which represents approximately 6,000 additional items listed every day at Depop's scale of 400,000 daily listings.

The insight confirmed what Photoroom has seen across other secondhand marketplaces: adding shadows in product photos is a distinctive way to bridge the gap between "edited photo" and "trustworthy product image," especially in AI-powered product photography. Background removal gets the clutter out of the way. Shadows make the product feel like something you could pick up.

That distinction matters even more on resale platforms, where buyers know they're not getting brand-new items. Shoppers expect images that look realistic, not catalog-perfect. They expect items to look presentable, but also like something that actually exists, has been worn, and is ready for its next owner.

Workflow of an image with background removed and shadow automatically added in seller’s workflow

Embedding Photoroom into Depop's listing flow

Beyond testing, Depop and Photoroom's teams ran a joint hack week to design an intuitive workflow that would fit naturally into the listing process. The goal was to make the tools invisible so that sellers wouldn’t need to learn a new app or follow extra steps.

The result is a set of Photoroom API powered features embedded directly into Depop's listing flow: background removal, AI shadows, and image resizing. Sellers access them for free, right where they're already creating listings, without needing external apps or subscriptions.

"We're proud to be the first fashion resale marketplace to partner with Photoroom, enabling sellers to quickly create high-quality product shots that help their listings stand out."

— Sonia Biddle, Chief Product Officer at Depop

The results: change in seller behaviour and 1M+ listings 

Since going live, Photoroom's tools have been adopted quickly across the Depop community:

• 1 million+ listings created using Photoroom's photo editing tools within weeks of launch.

• 1.5% uplift in items listed once AI shadows were added alongside background removal, a meaningful increase at peer-to-peer marketplace scale.

• Direct access to enterprise-level tools within the Depop platform, which drives faster adoption than asking sellers to use external apps.

Depop continues to roll out AI-powered features across its platform, from predictive recommendations to smarter pricing suggestions, all aimed at making selling faster and more rewarding. The Photoroom integration is part of that broader push: removing the friction that stands between a seller and a listed item.

With Photoroom embedded in the listing flow, Depop is investing in what comes next for sellers. As Sonia Biddle, Depop's CPO, puts it:

"We're not just adding features; we're removing traditional selling barriers, making it easier and faster to create listings, and supporting our community to grow. This release helps users streamline how they sell, boost their visibility and better understand what's working to free up more of their time."

— Sonia Biddle, Chief Product Officer at Depop

Photoroom processes billions of images a year and powers product photo editing for peer-to-peer and resale marketplaces, including Mercari, eBay, and Label Emmaüs where integrating Photoroom's API doubled conversion rates. Depop's results add to a growing body of evidence that AI-powered product photography drives measurable listing and sales improvements across marketplace platforms.

Depop and Photoroom partnership: FAQs

1. How does Depop use Photoroom?

Depop integrates Photoroom's AI photo editing tools directly into its listing flow. Sellers can remove backgrounds, add realistic AI-generated shadows, and resize images while creating a listing on Depop’s platform. The integration has been used on over 1 million listings.

2. Why do AI shadows matter for product photos on resale marketplaces?

AI shadows matter for product photos because background removal alone can make products look like they're floating, which undermines buyer trust on peer-to-peer platforms where shoppers expect to see real, pre-owned items. AI-generated shadows add a subtle sense of weight and realism, making products look clean but authentic. Depop's testing showed that adding shadows delivered a 1.5% uplift in items listed.

3. Can Depop sellers use Photoroom for free?

Photoroom is free for Depop sellers. The platform's photo editing tools are built into Depop's listing experience at no cost to sellers. Depop is the first fashion resale marketplace to partner with Photoroom and offer these enterprise-level AI photo editing tools as a free, built-in feature for its community.

4. What results did Depop see after integrating Photoroom?

After integrating Photoroom's background removal and AI shadow tools, Depop saw a 1.5% uplift in items listed during testing. Since the full launch, over 1 million listings have been created using the photo editing features.