I am sorry I haven't updated my blog in a while - with my new job and writing the book on weekends - spare time has been even more at a premium!
But this weekend while writing a chapter of Facebook Marketing for Dummies I was very impressed by the Marketplace on Facebook. The old marketplace was a owned and operated by Facebook but the new one is a much more elegant platform by oodle which opens it up to over 200 local and national sites affiliated with oodle.
The Marketplace is truly different than other popular sites like eBay or Craigslist since it is integrated into the fabric of Facebook allowing you to search by your friends listings, your network listings, and your location settings. All designed to give your own unique views on the Marketplace that you don’t get with eBay or Craigslist. Additionally there are features like Sell for a Cause, or Giving it Away that you don’t see on a site like eBay that needs to charge for listings so unlike eBay every listing on the Facebook Marketplace is free of charge!
During my all day writing extravaganza about the Facebook Marketplace - I saw the listings grow from 70,000 to 71,000 (1.5% increase in a day). Categories like Housing – For Rent accounted for over 19,500 listings (which is 28% of all listings), Books & Magazines accounted for over 16,000 listings (or 23%) and Electronics accounted for over 5,400 listings (or 7.7%).
As you might imagine many of the listings are the "Sell It" type (approximately 84%), followed by the "Ask for It" type at 14%, then "Give It Away" type at over 1% and "Sell for a Cause" at just under 1%. Clearly if you have something to sell this is the spot for it.
This site is truly a differentiated offer compared to eBay and Craigslist as as Facebook integrated in more payment features on the Facebook platform - this could become a real killer ap. Business should consider taking another look or at least keeping an eye on this platform.
(April 2009) (
