Facebook adds item-selling features to Groups
Facebook Inc. has come a long way from the days of being a simple social network for trendy college students, and now the social media giant is adding yet another feature to its growing list of tools for its 1.3 billion users: online selling.
You can find a Facebook Group for just about any subject, including Groups where users post items they are selling in a social media alternative to Craigslist. Previously, the support for these Facebook Groups was minimal at best, and users were forced to come up with their own format to clearly indicate what they were selling, their price, and the details on how to buy it.
The lack of structure made it difficult for Group admins to maintain order among the thousands of users listing items in a hundred different ways, and it also made it hard for buyers to find an item they wanted with all of the details needed to purchase it.
Now, Facebook is adding built in support for sellers, making the Group admins happy and selling a whole lot easier.
The new features include fields for users to add an item description, asking price, and a general location. There is also a field for a more detailed description of the item being sold, allowing users to provide additional information such as the condition of the item, their preferred payment methods, and so on. Sellers can also mark items as “Available” or “Sold,” making it easier for buyers to browse for items.
For users who frequently sell things through Facebook, the new features will also allow them to view a catalog of their previously sold items.
For now, the new selling features are only available to select “For Sale” Facebook Groups, leaving out many small business Pages that also use Facebook for e-commerce, but if they are successful, the features are likely to make their way out to other parts of Facebook in the future. Facebook also notes that the features will be rolling out to more Groups “in the coming months across iOS, Android and web.”
If you are an admin for a “For Sale” Facebook Group, you can sign up for the new features here.
photo credit: clasesdeperiodismo via photopin cc
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.