Facebook Marketplace dominating the market

For more than a decade, Craigslist, eBay and Etsy have dominated the peer-to-peer marketplace in which items are bought and sold. This has become the digital version of garage sales, except the products and services sold on these marketplaces are far more diverse. However, Facebook shook up the marketplace industry in October 2016 by announcing that it was going to relaunch Facebook Marketplace, but lost in all the excitement is the fact that Facebook Marketplace may not just be a platform where someone can get rid of a little-used product, but that it can, in fact, offer new opportunities for users who sell products as a full-time occupation. Facebook has 1.86 billion monthly active users, and 1.23 billion daily active users, as of December 31, 2016. More than 85% of those users live outside the U.S. and Canada, which means that Facebook’s worldwide reach far exceeds that of Etsy or eBay.

Facebook Marketplace offers browsing, selling and searching features. The browsing feature lets users look around the app without making a specific request, and displays product listings based on geography. However, because this is Facebook, browsing is optimized to display products that users would like based on past activity on the platform. In addition to products, Facebook Marketplace enables users to solicit job offers based on their skills, and to sell services targeted to a specific group of users or to all users on the platform. However, there is one major restriction in terms of sellers - brands are not allowed to sell on the platform, nor are they allowed to place paid ads for Marketplace users to view. That could change in the future, but for now, Facebook Marketplace is modeling itself after Craigslist, Etsy and eBay, and simply offering a place for buyers and sellers to interact without handling any payment processing or shipping. The other drawbacks so far is that there's no review system on Facebook Marketplace, so it's difficult for prospective buyers to gain a sense of a seller’s trustworthiness and credibility. Furthermore, because Facebook doesn’t handle payment transactions, there is no built-in guarantee of delivery, or a system that ensures that if a product is defective or sent in a condition other than advertised, a buyer would receive a refund. However, we look for them to make this more advanced and secure in the future.