My FB account exists almost solely for marketplace, which has almost total market dominance for local classifieds where I live in Australia. Recently they’ve stopped letting you send messages to sellers via the website on your phone and insist that you use the app instead. It’s probably one of the few hooks they have left to try and get people on to the platform.
It's frustrating. They have completely stomped every other marketplace in the UK. Things like Gumtree are ghost-towns in comparison.
I don't use it but my wife has sold loads of stuff that we no longer need. In that sense it's fantastic, it's made local selling very easy, but I really wish it was almost anyone but FB.
100%. I refuse to have an account, which means I need to use my partners to access marketplace, and a few landcruiser groups (which is mostly buying and selling parts, or advice)
It pains me that car forums and classifieds have succumbed to Facebook. I have no other need for Facebook, but on those fronts, Facebook is king.
IH8MUD is really the king for advice. But for 2nd hand parts, or 2nd hand vehicles, in Australia, it’s Facebook groups.
I suspect this is quite popular behaviour, as I recently saw that groups can enable anonymous posts (obviously still need an account). Which I prefer to catfishing people who are genuinely helping out, and who I feel a sense of community with. I just refuse to consent to Facebook being part of that relationship.
I hate FB and Meta properties so much. and they have captured so much of the web.
every little thing - requires login. if you don't have an account - you can't see shit.
I have accepted that i'm one of those now left behind. Books & internet forums is where I will catch up. even if I miss out, am I really missing out.
I'm from Austria and until recently I didn't even know that FB Marketplace was a thing. Never used it in my life. We have a great local website (https://willhaben.at) that everyone uses. I guess it's the Austrian version of Craigslist.
Same in Finland, we have a few local options (one of which was bought by a massive Nordic conglomerate) that were established well before FB Marketplace became a thing.
One of them even has an escrow system where the money stays in escrow until the delivery is confirmed as being correct, the money will also be released if the recipient never fetches the parcel.
FB Marketplace is just scams wall to wall, reporting does nothing. The only way to do business in via FBM is face to face and verify the item.
Usually local FB for sale groups are better quality and actually moderated, which marketplace isn't.
Lots of countries have settled on a local marketplace before FB arrived. E.g. in New Zealand, https://www.trademe.co.nz/ is too big to be displaced.
First mover advantage, nimbleness, and filters appropriate to regional differences (e.g. in Switzerland, translating easily between the different langages and filtering by canton) make such website stay ahead of the FB juggernaut.
There is certainly a lot to be said for first-mover advantage, but TradeMe specifically (while still popular) is currently fighting a losing battle. Between rising listing fees, selling fees as a percentage of the product's value, and the influx of drop-shippers that flood categories with "local" products, its days are likely numbered. Personally, while 10 years ago everyone I knew was using it, I no longer know anybody that goes to TradeMe to sell everyday items. I'm not a fan of FB, but the fact that it's monetarily free to use makes all the difference for the average user.
I thought FB marketplace had peaked already, especially for furniture.
18 months ago you could find stuff on there fairly easily, now it's full of "must go" or "Free" items that are "message me for pricelist" when you click through. It ends up being a real slog to find anything.
Yeah the "free" stuff makes finding some items a bit annoying (e.g. sofas), and if you try to sell any Apple products you get inundated with scammers, but it's still fairly useful.
Craigslist was like this too back when I used it. I never understood why they didn't ban the users who were doing it as it made certain categories too difficult to bother browsing.
> A key advantage is trust; users' Facebook profiles make transactions feel safer than on anonymous platforms like Craigslist, according to Seock.
Early on, I suspect that Craigslist attracted a lot of sketchiness with all the free stuff, anonymous sexual hookups personals ads, and prostitution.
I wonder whether they could've survived as just a non-sketchy classified ads place for household items and roommates/apartments. Which, at the time (at least in Boston) managed to coexist with the sketchy side of the site.
Lately, selling household items and computer gear onto Craigslist seems to come down to the rare random event that anyone is looking at it.
I live in the city, within walking distance of multiple universities, but, if an item is worth shipping, it'll now sell on eBay, but sit unsold for months on Craigslist.
I also now put on the curb things that in the past I would've been able to sell easily on Craigslist.
I suspect that the local used item sales have moved to Facebook Marketplace, plus students just buying new things delivered from an app (Amazon? Target?), when in the past they would've shopped new more.
I've managed to be free of Facebook all these years, and I don't want to start now.
To me the reason people use FB market is because of the lack of friction. you already have an account and probably already have the app. just snap a picture tell it what it is and how much and you're done. don't have to sign up for anything, or wait for confirmation emails. (I think this also tends to be the case for their dating services)
They also from what I can see do more aggressive searching on the content of images. I was once looking for a slot machine. and it found me a listing that did not mention a slot machine in the title or description (I think they were both blank somehow actually) but there was one in the picture.
It also does a lot more suggesting than craigslist or ebay for example. Not just reminding you of things you already saw. but thats FB being able to scrape all your data and know everything you want of course.
Readit News
I don't use it but my wife has sold loads of stuff that we no longer need. In that sense it's fantastic, it's made local selling very easy, but I really wish it was almost anyone but FB.
It pains me that car forums and classifieds have succumbed to Facebook. I have no other need for Facebook, but on those fronts, Facebook is king.
IH8MUD is really the king for advice. But for 2nd hand parts, or 2nd hand vehicles, in Australia, it’s Facebook groups.
I suspect this is quite popular behaviour, as I recently saw that groups can enable anonymous posts (obviously still need an account). Which I prefer to catfishing people who are genuinely helping out, and who I feel a sense of community with. I just refuse to consent to Facebook being part of that relationship.
I have accepted that i'm one of those now left behind. Books & internet forums is where I will catch up. even if I miss out, am I really missing out.
One of them even has an escrow system where the money stays in escrow until the delivery is confirmed as being correct, the money will also be released if the recipient never fetches the parcel.
FB Marketplace is just scams wall to wall, reporting does nothing. The only way to do business in via FBM is face to face and verify the item.
Usually local FB for sale groups are better quality and actually moderated, which marketplace isn't.
First mover advantage, nimbleness, and filters appropriate to regional differences (e.g. in Switzerland, translating easily between the different langages and filtering by canton) make such website stay ahead of the FB juggernaut.
18 months ago you could find stuff on there fairly easily, now it's full of "must go" or "Free" items that are "message me for pricelist" when you click through. It ends up being a real slog to find anything.
Early on, I suspect that Craigslist attracted a lot of sketchiness with all the free stuff, anonymous sexual hookups personals ads, and prostitution.
I wonder whether they could've survived as just a non-sketchy classified ads place for household items and roommates/apartments. Which, at the time (at least in Boston) managed to coexist with the sketchy side of the site.
Lately, selling household items and computer gear onto Craigslist seems to come down to the rare random event that anyone is looking at it.
I live in the city, within walking distance of multiple universities, but, if an item is worth shipping, it'll now sell on eBay, but sit unsold for months on Craigslist.
I also now put on the curb things that in the past I would've been able to sell easily on Craigslist.
I suspect that the local used item sales have moved to Facebook Marketplace, plus students just buying new things delivered from an app (Amazon? Target?), when in the past they would've shopped new more.
I've managed to be free of Facebook all these years, and I don't want to start now.
> Facebook’s influence remains strong globally, but younger users are logging in less.
Not here in south east Asia where FB remains dominant. Indeed having any kind of social life without a FB account would be difficult.
They also from what I can see do more aggressive searching on the content of images. I was once looking for a slot machine. and it found me a listing that did not mention a slot machine in the title or description (I think they were both blank somehow actually) but there was one in the picture.
It also does a lot more suggesting than craigslist or ebay for example. Not just reminding you of things you already saw. but thats FB being able to scrape all your data and know everything you want of course.