The burgeoning world of Facebook shopping groups has inspired change in the social media platform, pushing the website to introduce an e-commerce offering. The site’s latest development the 'Marketplace’ is the formalisation of its existing ‘buy and sell’ offerings and will be housed in a tab within its app.
Facebook announced the latest addition via its blog, commenting: “More than 450 million people visit buy and sell groups each month — from families in a local neighborhood to collectors around the world. To help people make more of these connections, today we’re introducing Marketplace, a convenient destination to discover, buy and sell items with people in your community. Marketplace makes it easy to find new things you’ll love, and find a new home for the things you’re ready to part with. We’ll continue to build new options and features to make this the best experience for people.”
Marketplace is now available in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand and will land Facebook into direct competition with eBay, Gumtree and Craigslist. It is expected that the new feature will roll-out to the rest of the world shortly and will be made available to businesses, as well as individuals.
