marktplaats – Social Blog

5/5 (2)

Most of you have probably seen the ‘For sale’ pages on Facebook, where people offer and buy second hand items. Believe it or not, these pages are being visited 450 million times each month, so Facebook decided to respond to this demand. ‘Facebook Marketplace’ is a marketplace inside the Facebook app that launched yesterday in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand on mobile devices. In these countries, the ‘Messenger’ icon in the Facebook app will be replaced by the ‘Marketplace’ icon. If it proves to be a success, Facebook will continue to expand their marketplace to other countries and also to the web platform. Should eBay, Marktplaats and other large players brace itself?

Nowadays when people want to sell a second hand item, they do not just place it only on eBay or Marktplaats, they also share it on Facebook. Does Facebook offer more advantages than the existing platforms? There are several advantages to Facebook Marketplace that could make users choose for Facebook Marketplace instead of for example Marktplaats or eBay:

Buyers and sellers can easily communicate through the already existing Facebook Messenger.
Posting items for sale is free, which is not the case on other platforms for some product categories.
Fraud can be reduced, as buyers can check the profiles of the sellers to see whether they are ‘real’ people.
Facebook can show their users second hand items based on their interests because Facebook knows these.
While on eBay or Marktplaats people search for specific items, Facebook users might go through Marketplace simply because they’re bored and could find something they like (spontaneous shopping). This could increase the range of potential buyers.

Besides aforementioned advantages, Facebook has the advantage of a strong brand name and the large amount of users. It’s hard to place any predictions about Facebooks new feature, but I believe that Facebook Marketplace has strong advantages and will therefore be a big threat for platforms such as eBay and Marktplaats. However, we will see what future will bring us.