![]() Marketplace operates a lot like a classified ads page: It simply lists items and leaves the buyers and sellers to negotiate the sales. Amazon and eBay provide return policies, while Facebook and Craigslist do not. However, it also doesn't offer the protection afforded by those two companies if, say, a product is defective or vastly different than described in the listing. It's also worth nothing that, unlike on eBay and Amazon (which mostly deals with new products), Marketplace charges no listing fees or taxes. Just keep in mind that not everyone on Facebook uses their legal name or a legit profile picture. You will also see if you have friends in common.Īnd, while not a guaranteed safety measure, knowing the amount of time the seller has been a Facebook user could help buyers weed out potential scammers. It displays the location of buyers and sellers and users' public Facebook profiles and cover photos. Unlike on Craiglist, where the sellers are largely anonymous, Marketplace will supply you with information that lets you know who you're interacting with. "Facebook's innate social connectivity adds a layer of credibility when you're considering whether to purchase from a user." "Marketplace adds immense transparency and credibility," says Rachael Powell, senior director of social media at the digital marketing agency Elasticity. One of the service's chief selling points-at least compared to Craigslist-is that it sheds more light on both parties in a transaction, potentially cutting down on shady dealings. In an official statement, Ku says Facebook "addressed the technical issue that caused this problem" and is "closely monitoring our systems to ensure violations are properly identified and removed as we gradually expand access to Marketplace." As of Friday afternoon, I could not find any illicit items on sale. And the Your Items tab makes organizing and managing your listings and queries to and from buyers relatively pain-free.Īnd, after a few embarrassing hiccups on the first day of operation, Marketplace's administrators seem to have cracked down on violations of Facebook's commerce policy, which prohibits the sale of prescription and recreational drugs, weapons, animals, alcohol, and explosives. Creating a listing and importing the image took less than a minute. Selling was also pretty easy on Facebook Marketplace. The Craigslist app also handles search pretty well, but the Contact button simply steers the user to a web version of the listing and leaves it up to the user to find the relevant information. I found it easy to narrow down search parameters and the means for contacting sellers through Messenger is pretty intuitive. ![]() What's more, the buying experience appears to be quite seamless. And the average user spends 50 minutes or more every day on the app. By comparison, in the second quarter of this year, eBay boasted 164 million active users, according to the data analysis company Statista.Īs many as 100 million active iOS and Android app users will soon have Marketplace baked into their Facebook app. "More than 450 million people visit buy-and-sell groups each month-from families in a local neighborhood to collectors around the world," wrote Mary Ku, Facebook's director of product management, in a blog post explaining the new service. In fact, lots of people have been using the social media network's Groups function to create mini marketplaces in recent years. ![]() With more than a billion monthly active users, Facebook is an inviting place to offload unwanted goods. (That now sits on the top-left corner beside the search bar.) Those on Android phones will find the icon near the top of the app, with Messenger on the right-hand side of the search bar. ![]() IPhone users will find the Marketplace icon inside the Facebook app, at the bottom of their screen between the Groups and Notifications icons, where the Messenger shortcut used to be. The search results can be filtered by product category and the proximity of the items (anywhere from two to 100 miles away). Right now, users can find stuff like a factory-unlocked iPhone 6 for about $350 and a lot of vintage cameras for $20. ![]() The feature began rolling out slowly to Facebook's mobile app users in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, with a desktop version and other locations to follow in the coming months. The sellers set the price, but would-be buyers are welcome to counter with another offer. Marketplace allows Facebook users, 18 years old and up, to post pictures of their garage sale items and collectibles and browse items offered by nearby sellers as well. ![]()
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