The Facebook Marketplace was launched in October 2016. Its vast spread resulted from Facebook’s popularity, simplicity, and, most importantly, the merger between Facebook as a social media platform and its commercial marketplace. It enabled a seamless shopping experience combined with social media activities.
Therefore, people started converting to the Facebook Marketplace for commercial purposes instead of the traditional buy-and-sell Facebook groups. Everyone wanted to take advantage of Facebook’s high reach potential to increase online sales and generate revenue.
In this article, we’ll demonstrate the Facebook Marketplace in detail and spotlight the ability to sell online via the Facebook Marketplace without obtaining a business license. We’ll cover the following:
About Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace, as its name suggests, is a buy-and-sell platform owned by Meta, where users can list new or pre-owned items for sale or purchase from sellers within their community. When released, it was a true representation of an online garage sale, but in a better-organized approach.
With almost three billion monthly users and insights about their preferences, Facebook presents a massive reach potential. According to Statista, the Facebook Marketplace registered over one billion active users in 2021.
You can find anything on the Facebook Marketplace, from a used piano to a fully renovated residential property. Its powerful advantage is the growing community of actual buyers interested in finding good deals from various categories. Moreover, it enables sellers to conduct one-on-one conversations with prospects using Facebook Messenger to discuss details and organize direct sales.
According to Pay Space Magazine, the Facebook Marketplace was initially only available via the Facebook app for iPhone and Android users to citizens of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Later, the service immediately gained popularity and expanded to 50 countries worldwide.
How does the Facebook Marketplace work?
The Facebook Marketplace was designed to be user-friendly, enabling non-tech-savvy Facebook users to list items for sale and find items available within their community.
The Facebook Marketplace depends on showing product photos on its home screen. The search tool can narrow down the results by area, price, or category. Additionally, you can check certain categories and go through the listed items in these categories. While you can use your current location to detect listings available around you, changing the location is easy to find items in other cities.
Once you find something interesting, tap on the product’s photo, and view further information from the seller, such as a product description, the seller’s name, profile photo, and geographical location. The Facebook Marketplace also enables saving favorite items for later review.
The Facebook Marketplace allows making offers on listed items or directly contacting the seller through Facebook Messenger to discuss the details and negotiate the prices.
Sellers can easily list items for sale. In fact, Facebook made it so easy that even the button is named “Sell Something.” All a seller needs is to take photos of the product and upload them with details before it’s published for buyers to find on the marketplace.
Listing items on Facebook Marketplace
Listing items on Facebook Marketplace is pretty simple, and these are the required steps in order:
- Upload the product photos
- Add the product title
- Set the selling price
- Select a category for your product from the existing list of categories
- Set the product’s condition, used or brand new
- Specify the exact location on the map if you’re selling the product offline
- Add the product description in detail
- Inform users if the product is available in stock or if only a single item is available for sale
- Add product tags to help people find it easily
- Set delivery status according to your preferences
- Set the meeting preferences for a public meetup, door pick-up, or door drop-off
Once done, you can select certain Facebook groups where you want the product to be posted and, finally, publish the product with a single click.
The advantages of Facebook Marketplace
Why are people converting to Facebook Marketplace instead of popular exchange platforms? Facebook Marketplace facilitates the process of selling and buying online in many ways.
The Facebook Marketplace is affordable
Sellers can list their items on the platform without paying fees. However, when an item is purchased, sellers will be asked to pay 5% of the product price after shipping the item, or $0.40 for items $8.00 or less.
The Facebook Marketplace has a high reach potential
The most interesting thing about Facebook Marketplace is the potential to reach many people who already exist on the platform. Thanks to its algorithm, products will appear for interested buyers based on their browsing preferences and current location, increasing the chances of the product being seen by the right people
The Facebook Marketplace allows direct communications
Buyers and sellers can interact directly through the Facebook Messenger app. Therefore, Facebook has nothing to do with their one-on-one communication. This feature allows more freedom in discussing details, asking questions, and negotiating prices in real-time.
The Facebook Marketplace is mobile-friendly
Who’s better than Facebook at providing user-friendly interfaces? The Facebook Marketplace is compatible with mobile phones and desktop screens. Most social media users online access various platforms through their mobile phones, making this feature essential for better reach and performance.
Facebook Marketplace Policies
According to the platform, anyone 18 years old or older who lives in an eligible country can access Facebook Marketplace. The service is available in over 50 countries, and people can use it on IOS and Android smartphones.
The platform’s policy states that listed items must comply with Meta’s Commerce Policies. Users not following the rules set by Meta may be punished in several ways, ultimately losing access to all eCommerce features.
The policy also includes a list of prohibited products, including the following items and others available on Meta’s commerce guide.
- Content violating any of the community standards
- Adult products, alcohol, human body parts, or fluids
- Digital media and electronic devices for streaming digital content unauthorizedly
- Discriminating content of any type
- Documents, currency, financial instruments
- Gambling products and services
- Hazardous goods and materials
- Human exploitation and sexual services
- Ingestible supplements
- Animals, adoption requests, and animal products
- Medical and healthcare products
- Misleading, violent, or hateful offers; you can’t sell news or humor
- Admission tickets to events, gift cards, and vouchers
Do you need a business license to sell on Facebook?
Facebook doesn’t require obtaining official licenses to sell on the Facebook Marketplace. However, according to people’s experiences, you may need a business license in some countries to sell specific products regulated by the government.
So, briefly speaking, it depends on where you are and where your target audience is. Governments might have special requests to regulate online sales, but Facebook Marketplace doesn’t have any. Remember that your sales on the Facebook Marketplace might be taxable and should follow the local rules regarding online sales and taxation regulations.
After all, selling on Facebook is a great way to start making money and increasing your income, as it has many users to show them your products. The platform itself offers a lot of facilitators for businesses.
