Going Head-to-Head with biggies- eBay and Craigslist 

With the launch of Facebook Marketplace, the company is looking to disrupt the already competitive social classifieds market. The market right now is abuzz with this announcement amidst the presence of heavyweights like eBay and Craigslist, and the more recent startups like LetGo and OfferUp. Facebook states that it already has over 450 million people visiting ‘buy and sell’ pages every month.

Going After The Competition

With the launch of Facebook Marketplace, users will be able to list, buy and sell items on their Facebook account and search their area for items they need. But isn’t it something that other players like eBay and Craigslist have already been doing for years? Then why Facebook is doing it? The answer is ‘Why not?’

Facebook already has people addicted to its social platform. Now with Marketplace, it can take advantage of those same 1.71 billion monthly users and surpass its competitors.

But It Cannot Be A Cakewalk

Forget biggies; startups like OfferUp and LetGo already have captured the market fancy. OfferUp has a strong current valuation at $1.2 bn. It’s CEO, Nick Huzar, strongly believes that OfferUp will be able to hold its own against Facebook’s new move. With a highly engaged user base and a good user experience, his company has garnered a lot of market traction in recent times.

Then there are the bigwigs of this market domain. eBay holds the #1 spot in social classifieds. It sold over $20 bn worth of merchandise in 2015. Facebook cannot just rest on its laurels and popularity to win over this market. It actually would need to pull out some tricks to get into this new zone.

Do you think Facebook is getting mixed up in one too many things? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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