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Facebook Marketplace — Buy and sell with your local community. A Craigslist killer.
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Facebook's been experimenting with this for a while. Some Facebook users have reported seeing the Marketplace button on the bottom row of the app for months.
Smart move by Facebook. Craigslist is somewhat ubiquitous despite how awful it is. Facebook is uniquely positioned to (finally) dismantle the long-time peer-to-peer marketplace.
@rrhoover It's ubiquitous despite it being awful? How is it awful? Craigslist looks the way it does because it works just fine. I think Craigslist is a good model for a lot of these utility-like services.
@rrhoover just sold a bunch of stuff at office and got rid of far more via google sheet + messaging my networks... vs. going to craigslist.
@rrhoover the popularity of Craigslist as a use case for @burner makes it very clear to me that a lot of users want privacy in some kinds of peer-to-peer transactions. There are times, though, when trust would help move transactions forward, or when knowing you're helping out a friend is an important complement to a few dollars.
When you're selling a car or a high-end piece of electronics, you don't want to sign a warrantee or have people come back to you if they have complaints on an "as-is" purchase. But if you need to move some concert tickets you can't use, or wanting to get rid of a perfectly good bike or used phone, a social network might be perfect. I've always thought marketplace would be interesting on facebook and will be interested to see if they nail it on this iteration. (It's not yet available to me, though.)
@rrhoover I think doubly smart is that they're introducing this after introducing payments via Messenger. Putting the payment system out first, and then following it with an ecosystem in which those payments can exist, seems to me to be the best way to leverage to the new Marketplace release.
I wonder if we'll see other social networks follow suit. Doesn't seem too far-fetched to conceive a scenario in which a social platform like Twitter might try to take similar advantage of ecommerce. Actually, a partnership with Square to create such a dynamic is a fun thought-experiment, though I'm not sure if that legally qualifies as a conflict of interest, as Jack Dorsey is currently the CEO for both companies.
Food for thought though.
Ruh roh - a marketplace disruption, solving the opaque security concerns of Craigslist? Still, black/gray markets will always serve their purpose - plus, FB can reward and punish based on EdgeRank, where CL is purely first come first serve - and that's a nice alternative / supplementary real estate. @jlax @erictwillis
I don't think it's going to kill Craigslist. I think that it will be promoted to try and stop the growth of Offerup
To be honest, the amount of things Facebook is putting its hat into is making me nervous. First of all, Facebook isn't the most well-designed or ethical of companies when giving light of its backend setup, privacy issues, or A/B testing procedures. Plus, they seem to almost be taking a Google-like stance where they feel like they can just try anything and believe it will work.
Also, dedicating an icon to the homerow, where it's been on my phone for 3 to 4 months now, is infuriating. I'm not going to sign it off now, but I'm curious to see how it goes, and hoping it is implemented better then where it is right now.
I want to make a bot that communicates with sellers and negotiates down the price of everything. I'll call it DadBot.
Good product. Terrible marketing video. What video that starts with a crying baby do you want to watch? Had me reaching for the mute button instantly.
Facebook team to Mark Zuckerberg: "What are we doing today, Mark?" Mark: https://giphy.com/gifs/head-over... That didn't work out so well, but you get the point 😆
A logical move for Facebook 👌
They talked about it months ago, I am excited to see how it will compete with Craiglist's French competitor "leboncoin" here in france 🤔
Now that this exists, it makes perfect sense. My only question is why Facebook waited so long. Interesting to see how this affects new apps like LetGo!
What makes craigslist great are the Job postings...once facebook allows me to post a job ad, then I would call it an Craigslist killer.
@aaronmckeehan Facebook pages allow posting job ads, it's in the status update section of business pages.
Smart of Facebook to try to capture that local market audience. People have been wanting but struggling to do this on their platform. Facebook here has the network and infrastructure in place to dramatically change and simplify the way local business is being done. Hopefully this isn't an afterthought and they keep building on it.
Classic Facebook playbook -
Step 1 - Intro new product to users
Step 2 - Add businesses if it catches on
Step 3 - 💰
This looks like a winner and I'd be way more comfortable with Fb marketplace than craigslist. Craigslist has gotten shadier over the years. @jlax
This is cool because I've used Facebook to purchase/sell items, but I'm not sure everyone wants Marketplace to be a central part of their experience. It has replaced where the Messenger button used to be on iOS, central on the toolbar. I'm surprised that THIS product of all of the ones they've tested made it on the toolbar.
This is great to see finally released. My area already has many towns using 'Groups' in this way. What had been missing were the obvious pricing, queuing, and haggle/sale management features. This seals the deal, nice work and very cool to see a feature like Groups reveal a potentially more attractive use case like local P2P commerce.
People have been calling FB Marketplace a Craigslist killer for years, but there are just certain things people rely on Craigslist for that they wouldn't want to attach their real names to...
Interesting. Much of this functionality was previously available in private marketplaces that have been running for years. I am a member of one locally that has 14,098 invite only members ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/... ) buying and selling goods. I wonder if people will be concerned about safety and security or if they will abandon these private markets or will use both.
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