Facebook announces Marketplace to challenge e-commerce sites like eBay

Facebook is a host to nearly 450 million users who visit buy and sell groups each month. To capitalize such a high number of users looking to buy or sell things, Facebook has announced Marketplace — a centralized location on Facebook where people will be able to exchange goods with each other.

Users will soon be able to access marketplace through a shop icon on their Facebook apps. Clicking this icon will bring up a page filled with items for sale that Facebook believes you’ll be interested in. Facebook will use your likes and dislikes to present you with items they consider most suitable for you.

In contrast to other such services, Facebook is not looking to deduct any transaction fees while selling and buying inside Marketplace. It’s main motivation behind the project seems related to enticing users to spend more and more time inside their app. This will surely help Facebook in boosting their revenue through other aspects of their app like sponsorships and paid advertisements.

It is unclear at the moment if Facebook will offer any protection to those buying and selling on their sites like eBay and Amazon do. However, given the sheer number of users present on their platform, it is not farfetched to assume that Facebook might be able to turn it into a viable competitor to those well-known services.

Take a look at this short video posted on Facebook Marketplace’s official page to get an idea about

Availability

Over the next few days, Marketplace will be rolling out to everyone over 18 years old in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand on the Facebook app for iPhone and Android. It will gradually expand to different countries and will be available on the desktop version of Facebook in the coming months.