It was just a matter of time… Facebook had to go into eCommerce. And it has taken the simplest route by starting with Classifieds. It has launched Marketplace – where you can buy and sell with your local community.
According to Mary Ku, Director of Product Management in a blog post,
Facebook is where people connect, and in recent years more people have been using Facebook to connect in another way: buying and selling with each other. This activity started in Facebook Groups and has grown substantially. More than 450 million people visit buy and sell groups each month — from families in a local neighborhood to collectors around the world.
To help people make more of these connections, today we’re introducing Marketplace, a convenient destination to discover, buy and sell items with people in your community. Marketplace makes it easy to find new things you’ll love, and find a new home for the things you’re ready to part with. We’ll continue to build new options and features to make this the best experience for people.
Facebook Marketplace is like most Classifieds platforms – You take a picture of an item, post it on the marketplace with a price. An interested party gets in touch with you with an offer price. Both parties meet outside the platform and the trade is done without Facebook getting any commission from the trade. Facebook does not facilitate the payment or delivery of items in Marketplace.
This would be competition to most of the established Classifieds platforms like Craigslist, letgo, Gumtree, OLX, e.t.c One advantage Facebook has, is the site traffic – “More than 450 million people already visit Facebook groups that have items to buy and sell each month”. Another advantage is the fact that Facebook solves the problem of anonymity since people on Facebook represent their real selves.
Marketplace will be rolled out in the United States, the UK, Australia and New Zealand for iPhone and Android users over the next few days and to additional countries in the coming months. The desktop version will also be available in the coming months.
This is the second time Facebook is launching this service. It tried this in 2007; similar service and same name – Marketplace , but it never took off and was offloaded to a third party called Oodle in 2009. In 2007, only the desktop version was available. But this time, Facebook is launching the mobile version first, possibly thinking mobile is the way to go.
