Facebook launches Marketplace for buying, selling items

PanARMENIAN.Net - 450 million people already visit “buy and sell” Groups on Facebook each month, and now the company is launching a whole tab in its app called Marketplace dedicated to peer-to-peer shopping, TechCrunch said.

Facebook Marketplace lets you browse a relevancy-sorted feed of things to buy from people who live nearby, and quickly list your own stuff for sale. Integration with Facebook Messenger lets you haggle or arrange a meet-up, and you know more about who you’re dealing with than on anonymous sites like Craigslist thanks to Facebook’s profiles.

Marketplace launched on Monday, October 3 in the U.S., UK, Australia, and New Zealand on mobile, but could roll out globally and on the web if it’s popular. There’s an unfortunate lack of a two-way rating system which helps discourage scamming and bad behavior. There’s also no native checkout option for transactions beyond ad-hoc payment through Messenger, which is annoying but promotes in-person exchanges instead of fraud-laden shipping.

“I think the prevalence of Craigslist shows there’s a great need for a local commerce product,” said Marketplace product manager Bowen Pan, according to TechCrunch.

While there’s no Pages allowed on Marketplace right now, Facebook could one day generate ad revenue if it let businesses or people buy News Feed ads or sponsored placement for what they’re selling. Pan tells TechCrunch, “After we’re confident we’ve built out a great product experience for people, we’ll look into introducing businesses if it makes sense, and after that we’ll look at how we could potentially monetize the surface.”

Facebook is betting big on Marketplace, considering its taking over a main spot in the navigation tab bar, replacing the Messenger shortcut in Facebook for iOS. That prime location could make Marketplace the digital version of impulse buys at the checkout counter.