How To Sell Yourself on the Facebook Marketplace
A few days ago we covered Facebook Classifieds, or more accurately, Oodle Classifieds on Facebook. Now Facebook has launched its own integrated version of classifieds on the site, called Facebook Marketplace. The marketplace is much better integrated with the rest of the site and as a result does a much better job of taking advantage of the social networking aspects of Facebook.
The Facebook Marketplace is 'Facebook's self-service solution for listing items for sale, housing for rent, jobs available, and so on.' In addition to listing items for sale you can also list items you are looking for, or simply search for items others may have listed. When you navigate to facebook.com/marketplace, you are automatically redirected to your networks' marketplace home.
From here you can see the listings you have made, the listings your friends have made, or add new listings. From the top tabbed-navigation you can choose to look at items from any of your networks. As you can see from the screen shot above, the first tab displays my university network (The University of Chicago) and next to it the Chicago, IL network. The site also allows you to click 'Other' and navigate to any other networks Facebook operates in and see items from there or list your item in those networks. Right below the networks you see the latest listings in the various categories from the network tab that you have selected and to the right of the categorized listings you can see the options to either 'Add a new listing' which is used to list an item you want to sell, and 'or list things you want' which is self-explanatory.
Adding a Listing
There are four categories in which you can list items.
- For Sale - Includes books, furniture, electronics, and tickets, etc.
- Housing - Includes apartments for rent, sublets to offer, etc.
- Jobs - career opportunities, part-time work, internships, etc.
- Other - Includes everything else that doesn't fit above.
When listing an item, you are asked for some required fields such as item name and description (must be at least 10 characters), and can optionally add other information. You also have the option to limit the listing to your Facebook profile, your primary network (in my case this is my university network), your secondary network (in my case this is the Chicago, IL network), and everyone else. You can upload up to 4 photos while creating a listing and more can be added once the listing has been created.
The form-fields for all categories are completely customized (i.e. the image above is not the same for all listings) and ask for information that makes each listing incredibly thorough; as a result, the information you have to add (mandatory) and can add optionally varies based the item you are listing. Once you enter the information mentioned above, you're given a preview of your listing and you're done. As you can see below, I am offering a used Alexa graph for Digg traffic for $10.
Since I chose to display the listing to all my networks and display it on my profile, it shows up on my 'Mini Feed', and by clicking on it I can also choose to share it with specific friends. Don't worry if you make any mistakes in your listing, you can log back in and edit it or if you change your mind, delete a listing.
Making Transactions
If you find an item that you want to buy, Facebook allows you to contact the seller through the site but doesn't allow you to buy it on the site. What's great is that when you find something interesting and click on it, the site tells you how you know the seller (i.e. if you are friends with the seller or know the person through any of your friends).
Also checkout Facebook's own extensive help section for its marketplace.
Facebook Marketplace is truly integrated into the site, unlike Oodle Classifieds which take you away from Facebook every time you want to make a listing or want to contact a seller. Furthermore, the ability to share your listing with your primary and secondary networks, as well as specific friends, and the ability to see who exactly you are making a transaction with and to know how (if at all) you know a buyer or seller, makes Facebook Marketplace a truly great extension of Facebook's social network. While there is a significant overlap between the two services, with time, and as listings on the site grow, Facebook Marketplace will render Oodle Classifieds obsolete.
Aside from that, this is a logical extension of a social network, especially one that has its roots in a user base consisting exclusively of college students. My university has a marketplace (limited to the students) but now that the Facebook Marketplace has landed, I doubt many people will be using the former. While Facebook is currently not making any money from the new service, it has allotted a section for 'Sponsored Listings' and can easily monetize it in the future by charging a minimal fee for listings. This is a perfect example of a company leveraging its strengths in a field (social networking) and extending it to related niche (social shopping) and creating value for its users, with the potential of monetizing it whenever they see fit.
Enjoy the post? Here are some more that may interest you.
Trackbacks (0)
There are no trackbacks for this post yet.
Reader Comments (3)
- Stan Schroeder, May 14, 2007
-
Nice overview! Now if I could only make myself start using Facebook (;
- engtech, May 14, 2007
-
Saw something very cool when I checked it out.
A freelance web designer put up an ad as a "freelnace web designer".
Typo got my attention.
- Justin L, May 14, 2007
-
Very nice from facebook. Facebook really did everything right with the social network. I am not a big fan of myspace but their network is definitely very big nonetheless. I will look into how i can benefit from facebook as a new marketing channel. thanks for the post!
