Facebook now allows sellers to catalog and mark items as sold to capitalize on the growing popularity of trade groups
Facebook is making significant strides to establish its image as a popular e-commerce platform. The latest change has come in the form of a new feature which enables sellers to make “For Sale” postings in a group. This will serve as a new destination for virtual garage sales.
Facebook profile ensures security
With the help of the new feature, it will be possible for sellers to catalog the items they wish to put up for sale and also prepare a catalog of items they have sold in the past. For making a sale posting in these groups, the sellers are required to post a photograph of the product along with the price and other details.
The focus of these informal groups is on particular items, brands or neighborhoods, and they act like forums. There is a local group in a San Francisco Bay Area community with about 1,000 members and its admin, Ann Chen, told CNET that the groups are preferred to Craigslist because the profiles on Facebook offer them a better sense of security in comparison with anonymous online posts.
“It’s attached to your name and it feels like these are real people. These are people in your community,” she said. “It’s not just about selling things. You can ask about kids’ classes or for a good handy man.”
Competing with Craigslist, eBay
Such groups on Facebook are known as buy/sell/trade groups and are meant for people who wish to sell their goods in a setting that is very much intimate rather than on a public site like Craigslist or eBay.
Online shopping is a popular and a fast growing trend, and Facebook is devising a way to build a business from it. The company has made several attempts at making online shopping a success such as including selling and shipping physical items and adding “buy” buttons in advertisements. However, none of these methods have been successful to date, and the success of this new feature has yet to be seen.
Facebook said on Tuesday that the new feature will be available to all Facebook “For Sale” Groups in the coming months.
