All you need to know about Facebook's Marketplace

All you need to know about Facebook's Marketplace

A little less than a month ago, Facebook has announced the launch of a new feature called Marketplace, which is designed to offer the social network's users a better environment for selling and buying things. It is basically the social network's version of Craigslist, but it has a few extra rules. In case you are curios, here are some more details about Facebook Marketplace along with a few handy tips to sell items.

Before we begin, I should start by telling you some of the IT giant's rules for this section. For starters, Marketplace is all about local transactions, so only people that are in a radius of 100 miles from you will be able to see your ads. Secondly, Facebook doesn't get involved in transactions, so if the product that you bought isn't as good as promised or if the money that were promised didn't come, you're on your own. Thirdly, you can only sell objects; services and living things aren't accepted. And lastly, but most importantly, you can't sell any illegal merchandise.

If you're curios about how you can use this new feature, all you have to do is to tap the little icon from the navigation bar and you'll be taken to the Marketplace section where you can see the items that are currently available in your area. In case you're looking for something specific, there are a Category button and a search bar to help you out. Those who want to sell  their...  "fine used goods" need to tap the Sell button from the top-left corner, then add a picture and a description of the item that they're offering along with the asking price. Of course, the price is generally negotiable and those interested in the item can make an offer directly or choose to message the seller.

In case you're interested in selling some of your items, but you don't have a lot of experience in this type of transaction, here are a few tips that can help you out:

• User profile - being able to see the Facebook profile of the person who you're doing business with is very useful, but remember that the other party can do the same thing. You should go over things and make sure that you don't offer too much private information.
• Price - since most often these transactions end after one or more rounds of haggling, it's best to set the starting price a bit higher than you normally would so that you have some wiggle room.
• Listing - listing your items individually instead of in a group will generally nab you more money.
• Transactions - as I previously stated, Facebook doesn't offer any kind of protection, so make sure that the other party is fully aware of the price and conditions for your transaction. If you have to meet the buyer, make sure that it's in a well-lit and populated place, that's not too close to your residence.

Now, when you've seen all you need to know about Facebook's Marketplace, you might also want to check out some of our other stories like: "Chatbots' era is about to begin" or "Best tips for Facebook Messenger users".