Websites like Craigslist are popular for selling pre-owned stuff online and the trend has been going on for a long time, however, not everyone trusts these websites due to the fact that the users cannot see the face of the buyer or the seller. Recently, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) revealed that it is working towards giving its users a platform to sell their things on Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) groups.
The trend of users buying and selling their products on Facebook Groups has been gaining popularity. However, the California-based company did not offer a feature which could be used by the users to post their goods in the form of a listing. In order to sell their products, users had to post them on the group wall and then advertise them in a manner that would attract the attention of the potential buyers.
This process resulted in getting the group wall cluttered. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) came up with a feature that enabled the users to post their products in the form of a listing. The post would follow a proper format which would include all the necessary fields like the price of the product along with the location as well as its description. Furthermore, the new feature will also provide the users with an option which would be used to mark the item as sold.
This new feature from Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) will also be quite helpful for small businesses which are otherwise not very dominating on the internet. Users are increasingly joining various groups on the social media sites to sell their clothes, house-hold items, electronics and other products. The users also say that they are more comfortable in buying and selling their products on Facebook because one can see the person’s face and that gives an air of security unlike Craigslist, where the people are completely anonymous.
Due to this increasing popularity of the buy and sell groups, Facebook decided to add the feature and the users are happy with this feature. Moreover, the group admins are also full of praises for the company’s move of adding a separate feature as this has eased a lot of their work load. Previously, group admins had to deal with more than 100 posts each day out of which many were spam posts.
This feature has made the posts more organised and it’s easier for the admins to sort out the posts in a more efficient manner. Last night, TechCrunch came across this feature and it was confirmed that the feature is just available in a few groups at the moment. However, the admins of other buy and sell groups can request for the feature to be added in their group.
The sell feature is unavailable for public pages that are involved in e-commerce on a frequent basis. Although the social network company has rolled out the feature but there is still some room for improvement which the company is still working on. Users say that one of the problems that they face in the buying and selling process is that many times the messages end up in the “others” folder which makes it hard for them to see the message.
Facebook has said that it will be adding more features to help making the transition smoother.
