It looks like the Facebook Marketplace is testing a Daily Deals feature. Does this mean the social network has bigger plans for ecommerce and making it more commercial?
According to an eagle-eyed tweeter called Manchun Wong, who uses Twitter under the name @wongmjane, Facebook is testing a Daily Deals feature. Here’s her Tweet with a screengrab as evidence:
Facebook is testing (?) “Daily Deals” on Marketplace pic.twitter.com/66wMQTEpQ1
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 14, 2018
Obviously, this is all we have to go on regarding what could be a narrow test or evidence of a wider development at Facebook to make the Facebook Marketplace a greater utility for professional ecommerce merchants. And it is already hugely popular with individuals and people selling a few bits here and there in a hyper-local manner. There are currently no fees and no seller tools to make bulk management and administration of sales and listings possible. And such facilities are absolutely essential if merchants are to trade on a marketplace at any scale.
What is particularly tantalising for marketplace observers too is the obvious evidence that Facebook is in a strong position to make a success of online retail and become a fascinating marketplace. They have global reach, technological skill and a huge existing audience that are already used to shopping online. It seems to have all the requisite ingredients and yet, as an organisation, Facebook also seems unsure about what it wants to do.
The prize for Facebook is with the potentially huge incremental revenues creating a whole new marketplace. And it is always under pressure, as any publicly traded company is, to deliver ever growing revenues and profits. It would be interesting to know what Mark Zuckerberg and team are thinking when it comes to selling and trading online on Facebook and whether it could be thinking really big. Maybe we will learn more soon.
We’d love to hear if you’ve seen any further evidence of this test. And also, more importantly, what you’d need to see from the Facebook Marketplace if you were to use it as a professional sales channel as a merchant.
One Response
I know she does a LOT of shopping via FB. Well browsing anyway. Younger ones this is where they go…
We GOT our Wedding cake on Facebook with some AD from a firm in Glasgow. Bargain if you ask me and like half the price they charge at these rip off wedding fayres, who wants a fortune for a cake hardly anyone eats or notices as everyone is ratted by then…
However is Facebook really the answer????more pay to play, another US tax dodger????….I do not know…
Right now it is too Gumtree and is pretty useless the marketplace is also pointless in rural areas like here where everything is miles apart….We need a direct checkout and the ability to ship.
Certainly it would finish eBay who are to short term and want to fleece us sellers with more for less everyday.