Facebook has officially launched Marketplace, which is a place where users of their mobile app can list things that they have for sale so that others in the area can see and hopefully buy. This is generally being compared to Craigslist in terms of the market it serves, and how it works. Anywhere that things can be bought and sold is, of course, going to be of great interest to marketers.
Unfortunately, Facebook has made it clear that this service isn’t made for brands or page owners. In fact, Pages can’t even post into the market place. This is quite a significant restriction and will seriously limit the opportunities that many local businesses have when using Facebook.
Of course, there will be ways around these rules, and at some point in the future, Facebook might open up the service to a wider audience. For now, however, the Facebook marketplace is simply somewhere that allows users to list products and make offers. Facebook isn’t involved in the payment handling, the security, or anything else concerning the transaction.
It is a free service, though there will be ads displayed so Facebook can make their money, of course. Overall it seems like a very simple service that will make it nice and easy to get people together. It will certainly be interesting to see how it develops going forward.
