Online retailer Etsy - popular with many small Gloucestershire businesses - has snapped up UK-based second-hand fashion app Depop.

It's seen as a move by the US giant to target younger 'Generation Z' customers.

The deal worth £1.14billion is expected to go through later this year.

Etsy operates an online marketplace that connects millions of buyers and sellers around the world. But its users tend to be older.

About 90% of Depop's customers, on the other hand, are under the age of 26.

Founded in 2011, Depop is a community-powered marketplace to buy and sell fashion items.

The app combines its shopping with Instagram-style direct messages, so buyers and sellers can negotiate on prices and postage. It now boasts around 30 million users in 150 countries.

Depop will continue to have its headquarters in London and operate as a standalone marketplace run by its existing leadership team.

It is the 10th most visited shopping site among so-called Generation Z consumers in the United States.

Josh Silverman, Etsy, Inc. CEO, said: "We are simply thrilled to be adding Depop—what we believe to be the resale home for Gen Z consumers—to the Etsy family.

"Depop is a vibrant, two-sided marketplace with a passionate community, a highly-differentiated offering of unique items, and we believe significant potential to further scale."

Depop's CEO Maria Raga said: "We're on an incredible journey building Depop into a place where the next generation comes to explore unique fashion and be part of a community that's changing the way we shop.

"Our community is made up of people who are creating a new fashion system by establishing new trends and making new from old.

"They come to Depop for the clothes but stay for the culture. We'll now take an exciting leap forward as part of the Etsy family, benefiting from Josh's and his team's expertise, and the resources of a much larger company whose values are so aligned with ours here at Depop."

Rachel Glaser, Etsy's chief finance officer, said: "We've admired Depop for a while - a company we believe is still in the early innings of its growth opportunity."

Etsy Inc will now operate three differentiated brands: Etsy, Depop and Reverb, an online platform for new and used musical instruments.