Ethan Gaskill, a 29-year-old content creator, starts every day the same way: “When I wake up in the morning — most people get on their phone and start checking Instagram — I browse Facebook Marketplace.”
With his Los Angeles home furnished almost exclusively with second-hand items and a TikTok with more than 220,000 followers interested in his thrifted products, Gaskell is confident that the shopping platform will be a reliable source for hidden gems: $1,000 Herman Miller light and pendant Catch $400. a $5,000 bed from the same designer he bought for 20% of the original price; and a $4,000 mid-century Founders' wardrobe that Gaskell acquired for $800.
“It gives people an opportunity to bring really rare items or just one-of-a-kind items into their homes that they otherwise wouldn't have if they didn't have access to a flea market or an estate sale,” Gaskill said. luck.
Facebook Marketplace has not only become a trusted source for the used scene in Los Angeles. It has made itself a real contender to compete with established e-commerce sites. Facebook has grown to 3.07 billion monthly active users (MAUs) as of the end of 2023, an increase of 3% year-on-year. Of those, up to 40%, or 1.2 billion, are active users who shop on Marketplace, according to a March report. Report from Capital One Shopping.
Meta's online used goods marketplace is already challenging the giants of the sector. Marketplace has outperformed Craigslist's MAUs for years, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying in 2018 that there 800 million MAUs on the marketThat compares to 55 million visitors on Craigslist in 2017. In contrast, Amazon had 310 million monthly users in 2023, For each technical report, about a quarter of the Marketplace's monthly active users. Marketplace is the second most popular site for used purchases after Ebay, according to A Statista Report 2022.
“This is a growth area,” said Charles Lindsay, assistant professor of marketing at the University at Buffalo School of Management. luck. “I wouldn't be surprised if it actually surpasses Ebay in three or five years.”
Amazon and eBay did not respond luckRequest for comment.
From online garage sale to e-commerce giant
Marketplace's astronomical growth is in large part because the platform is easy to use and already connected to a site where a lot of people are already members, Lindsay said.
“There is a trust factor because it is linked to Facebook,” he said. “It has an easy-to-use interface. It's integrated with Facebook Messenger, so it's easy to navigate back and forth.
Launched in 2016, Marketplace was originally a way to facilitate sales between neighbors, with most users offering a used item for sale at a reasonable price, and buyers picking up the item and coordinating with the seller via Facebook Messenger about collection and payment. But Marketplace has evolved into a massive e-commerce platform, with one in three Facebook users in the United States using it By 2018. During the pandemic, Marketplace has exploded thanks to increased reliance on e-commerce, supply chain and shipping delays that have disrupted brick-and-mortar shopping.
“We're seeing everyone from artisans who handcraft goods to woodworkers to car sellers thriving,” Deb Liu, founder and then vice president of Marketplace, said. Tell Modern retail In 2021.
By then, Marketplace had become a boon not only to frugal shoppers, but also to small businesses looking for unique sales methods. Beautiful Fight Woodworking, based in Springfield, Missouri, generated $168,000 of its $266,000 in revenue in 2020 exclusively through Marketplace sales.
The platform is certainly not without major issues, especially with scammers and bot accounts rampant on the site, giving well-intentioned buyers a tough time. One South Carolina user claimed in February that it was Scammed out of $18,000 After listing his 2016 Audi for sale on Marketplace. A 2022 thinkmonkey poll of 1,000 britons It found that one in six had experienced fraud on the platform.
“What happens offline often finds its way into online environments, and this unfortunately includes scams,” said Ryan Daniels, a spokesperson for Meta. Tell Wired. Meta said it was working “aggressively to quickly identify, disrupt and block fraud and associated accounts.”
Gen Z's new favorite social media
Through its rise, Marketplace has won over a generation of young people who have largely turned away from Facebook.
“I look at it like a social media app,” said Dre Fizz, a 25-year-old content creator. luck.
Vez spends about six to 12 hours a day on Marketplace, where he makes his living “trolling” sellers by asking them via voice memos to test the product, before uploading the interactions to TikTok for his 755,000 followers.
Marketplace has found itself not just fodder for entertainment videos but also as a true social media tool for Gen Z and Millennials because it is fast-paced and highly stimulating.
“It's the ability to have so many interactions in a short period of time, where I can go to Facebook Marketplace, I can search for a bike, I can reach seven to 10 different people and have all these conversations at the same time,” he said.
Even on days when he can't find a good deal, Vez finds some laughs on the site. He recalls that sellers got away with listing toenail clippers, toilet brushes, plungers and even a $10,000 face-shaped Dorito.
Meta has noticed its young, enthusiastic users. While Facebook is popular among teenagers It has diminished In the wake of TikTok's rise, Facebook now has more than 40 million daily users among young adults ages 18 to 29 in the United States and Canada, the highest level in three years, with one in four using Marketplace, Meta said. luck.
For indirect connoisseur Gaskell, who checks Marketplace five to 10 times a day, the platform is attractive to young people because it appeals to their desire for independence, Saving MoneyAnd environment protection Against mass production and shipping strains.
“Just given the economic conditions, but also with a mindset like Generation Z, they like uniqueness, they like self-expression,” he said. “But they also like to find things at a good price.”
Find room to grow
But just because Meta boasts a growing fan base for its Marketplace platform, that doesn't mean it's a profitable arm of the company. Meta did not respond to luckAsked for comment on how it makes money through Marketplace, but marketing professor Lindsay suggests the company could benefit from seller transaction fees, as well as more attention to the site's advertising.
“In general, the more likely someone is to use Facebook Marketplace, the more likely they are to log into Facebook multiple times a month,” he said. “Facebook then takes advantage of that by being able to make companies pay for ads that then go to my feed, and go to your feed.”
The EU's European Commission alleged in December 2022 that Facebook and Marketplace were linked to each other and used data in a way that violated EU competition rules, according to December 2023 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Marketplace is, in part, an important aspect of Facebook's financial puzzle because its local exchanges are low-cost, according to Sucharita Kodali, a retail industry analyst at market research firm Forrester — especially, compared to Ebay, which requires a massive international infrastructure.
“It's a huge volume of transactions,” she told Fortune. “With that transaction volume comes some sort of necessary investment in a lot of automation, customer service, vendor management, vendor tools, etc.”
While Facebook Marketplace doesn't need an elaborate system to manage local transactions, this also means it likely won't make as much money as its e-commerce competitors. In fact, Kodali has gone so far as to call Marketplace an “anti-trade” platform because it includes a lot of “buy nothing” groups and peer-to-peer exchanges. She took a similar position as Lindsay, arguing that the platform's financial advantage was to help better target ads to active users.
“It's not really about saying, 'Let's make money from the volume of engagement we see in the marketplace section,'” she said.
The Marketplace's virtual garage sale atmosphere and the platform's community feel may not generate billions of dollars for Meta, but it's exactly what keeps users coming back to the site.
“You never know when the next amazing thing is going to come along,” Gaskill said. “That's the fun of it. That's what makes it addictive.”