Facebook’s Craigslist-style Marketplace isn’t open to brands, Page owners

Page owners, including brands, will not be able to sell items in Facebook's Marketplace, and there's no way to pay for featured placement.

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Last year, Facebook rolled out Shops, which appears to be the social network’s bid to take on Amazon, and now it’s taking aim at the other end of the ecommerce spectrum: Craigslist.

On Monday, Facebook debuted Marketplace, a section in its mobile app for people to put items up for sale that other people can buy.

Marketplace is very much like Craigslist, i.e., very bare bones. Facebook is only providing a place for buyers and sellers to meet; the company will not be involved in payment processing or shipping, according to a Facebook spokesperson. And like Craigslist, Facebook’s Marketplace is locally oriented. Initially, Facebook will show people nearby items for sale based on their location, though people will also be able to check out items in other locations or browse by category or price. If you find something you want, you have to send the seller a private message through Facebook to figure out how to exchange goods for money (or maybe barter).

And Marketplace is not really a place for brands. For now, Pages cannot sell products through Marketplace, and there’s no way for anyone who can sell products in Marketplace to pay Facebook to have an item featured in Marketplace or shown to a specific group of people, the spokesperson said.

While there isn’t a way for people to pay to get their products featured in Marketplace, Facebook is featuring the swap meet-style shopping section in its mobile app. The company will replace the Messenger tab on its mobile app’s home screen with a tab for Marketplace.

But wasn’t Facebook already replacing the Messenger tab with something else, you might ask? Yes.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Tim Peterson
Contributor
Tim Peterson, Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat's ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar's attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon's ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube's programming strategy, Facebook's ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking's rise; and documented digital video's biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed's branded video production process and Snapchat Discover's ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands' early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo's and Google's search designs and examine the NFL's YouTube and Facebook video strategies.

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