How to Get Facebook Marketplace & Use it for Trading Items

Facebook Marketplace is more than a buy-and-sell-old-stuff platform – it has shaped into a marketing channel for businesses to advertise their products.

To back up, Facebook Marketplace generated a gross revenue of $26 billion in 2021, which was a 48% increase from 2020. With that at hand, the Marketplace is expected to keep growing in 2022 and onwards. If Facebook Marketplace advertising is not a part of your marketing strategy, you might miss out on a huge revenue down the road.

In this article, we’ll dive deep into what Facebook Marketplace is and how it works. We’ll also break down easy steps on how to advertise products on it as a business. Let’s dive in.

What is Facebook Marketplace?

Facebook Marketplace is a feature on the Facebook platform that allows users to buy and sell items within their local communities. It offers a convenient way for users to find items for sale in their local area, across a wide range of categories, including:

Vehicles
Rentals
Clothing and shoes
Furniture
Electronics
Antiques and collectibles

Users can search for items by category or location and filter their search results by price, condition, or other keywords. Once you find an item you’re interested in, you can contact the seller to arrange a purchase.

If you’re selling an item on the Marketplace, you’ll need to take a photo of the item and post it with a description and price. You can also include shipping information if you are willing to ship the item. After your item is posted, buyers in your area can see it and contact you if they’re interested.

The Marketplace is accessible through the Facebook app and website. To access Facebook Marketplace on your desktop, simply log into your Facebook account and click on the Marketplace icon in the left-hand menu.

For mobile devices, open the Facebook app and tap on the Marketplace icon at the top of the screen. You can also access it by clicking the three horizontal lines in the top right corner of your screen and selecting the Marketplace option.

Why Having Facebook Marketplace is Worth It for Your Business?

There are many benefits to using Facebook Marketplace for your business. It provides a great way to reach a wider audience, track your listing’s analytics, personalize your listings, and even test out new products.

Some benefits of Facebook Marketplace for businesses are as follows:

Better Reach of Your Brand

When you have a Facebook business page, your products and brand can be seen by anyone who visits your page. However, with Facebook Marketplace, your products and brand can be seen by anyone on Facebook, whether or not they follow your page.

This gives you the opportunity to reach a much wider audience and could potentially lead to more sales. So, make sure you use Marketplace categories and subcategories to your benefit and help users find your products easily and quickly.

Detailed Analytics

Facebook Marketplace gives you access to detailed analytics. With these analytics, you can track your listing’s impressions, views, and clicks. This information can be extremely valuable to help you to optimize your listings and ensure as many people are seeing them as possible.

Mobile-Friendliness

Unlike other online platforms, you don’t have to worry about making your listing mobile-friendly with Facebook Marketplace because it is mobile-friendly by default.

Mobile-friendly listings are essential because phones are the primary source of Facebook access for nearly 98% of its users. This means that your listings will be easy to view and browse on a mobile device, making it more likely that people will see them.

Personalization Options

When you list on Facebook Marketplace, you also have the option to personalize your listings. This can be done by adding photos, videos, and descriptions tailored to your targeted audience.

By doing so, you can really show off your products and make them stand out from the competition.

Free Listings

Unlike some other selling platforms, Facebook Marketplace is free to use in terms of listings. This means you can list as many items as you want without paying any fees. This can be a great way to save money, especially if you are just starting out.

Please note that you have to pay a 5% fee per shipment to Facebook as the cost of payment processing and other taxes.

Productive Customer Management

When you use Facebook Marketplace, you get to know your customers better. This is because, with Marketplace, you can message each customer directly, check their profile, and see their reviews from other businesses.

You can also offer them discounts and even give them first-time buyer coupons. This way, you get to build a good relationship with your customers, which can lead to more sales.

Worry-Free Testing

Another great thing about Facebook Marketplace is that it is a worry-free way to test out new products. This is because you can list your products for free, and there is no risk involved.

You can try multiple pricing strategies with different products. So, you don’t lose anything even if your product doesn’t sell. But if it sells, you can invest more time and money into it.

How Can You Use Facebook Marketplace for Your Business?

Facebook Marketplace is a great way to sell your products and services online. To sell as a business on the Facebook Marketplace, you have three options that we have explained below:

Show Inventory of Retail Items

If you have a retail store, you can list your inventory on Facebook Marketplace. This is a great way to reach potential customers who may not be familiar with your store.

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial to show your retail inventory on Facebook Marketplace:

Open Facebook Marketplace in the app and click on the Sell option in the top left corner.
When you click on it, a Create new listing window will pop up from the bottom.
Select the type of listing you want to add from the menu (items, vehicles, or homes for sale or rent).
Add up to 10 high-quality images of the item you want to sell.
Write a title, price, condition, subcategory, and description of the product.
You can also edit your location and choose to hide the listing from your Facebook friends.

Display Products From Your Facebook Page Shop

If you have a Facebook page for your business, you can showcase items from your shop on Marketplace. But before you can do that, you need to add FB Marketplace as a sales channel by following these steps:

Open the Commerce Manager (a business tool from Facebook) and choose your shop.
Find Settings in the left-hand menu.
Tap on Business Assets.
Choose the Enable Marketplace option, and all eligible items will appear on the Marketplace within 24 hours.

Sell on the Platform as a Business

You can set up a business profile on Marketplace and sell your products and services directly to customers. Although it is a great way to reach a wider audience and make sales, this feature is currently limited. It means only eligible sellers and authorized products can be sold via this feature.

So, if you’re wondering how to get Facebook Marketplace to sell as a business without linking to your personal account, you may have to wait for a few updates from Facebook.

How to Advertise on Facebook Marketplace

If you’re wondering how to post on Facebook Marketplace to get maximum traction, advertising on Facebook Marketplace is a great way to get your products or services in front of more people. Since Facebook Marketplace is accessible in more than 200 locations worldwide, your ad can reach millions of potential customers.

By following the steps below, you can create an effective ad that will reach your target audience.

Create an ad account

To create an ad account on Facebook, go to the Facebook Ads Manager page, and click Create Ad Account. From there, you’ll need to fill out basic information about your business, such as your business name and contact information.

Choose your ad objectives

Once you’ve created your ad account, you can start posting advertisements about your business. To create an ad, you’ll need to choose a campaign objective from the following categories after logging into your Facebook Ads Manager:

Brand awareness
Reach
Traffic
Engagement
App installs
Video views
Lead generation
Messages
Conversions
Catalog sales
Store traffic

After selecting an option, click Continue.

Select your audience

One of the great things about advertising on Facebook is that you can target a specific audience. When creating your ad, you’ll be able to select things like:

Demographics
Age
Gender
Interests

After selecting your audience, you can click Save This Audience to use future listings.

Set your budget

After selecting your audience, you’ll need to set a budget for your ad. You can choose to run your ad continuously or set a start and end date for your campaign. Besides, you need to decide how much you’re willing to spend per day and set a daily or lifetime budget.

Decide on your ad placement

When creating your ad, you’ll need to decide where you want it to be placed. Facebook offers two placement options:

In Automatic Placements, you allow Facebook to use its delivery system for diving your budget across multiple placements. As a result, Facebook chooses to place your ads where they’ll perform the best. This feature is recommended by Facebook.
On the other hand, you decide where you want to place your ad in Manual Placements.

After you’ve selected your desired option, click Next.

Choose your ad’s creative format

Now that you’ve chosen your ad placement, it’s time to decide on the creative format of your ad. Every ad must contain the following:

Single or multiple images or videos
Headline
Primary text
Description
Call to action (CTA)

Please remember that Facebook doesn’t allow cropping images in the Marketplace. So, make sure image and video specs and sizes are correct before uploading.

Choose your destination URL

When a potential customer clicks the CTA, you want them to go to your product/service page where they can make a purchase. So, choose a destination URL to which people will be taken to when they click on your ad.

Launch your ad and wait for review

Once you’re happy with your ad, it’s time to launch it. You can do this by clicking the Publish button in the Ads Manager.

After launching your ad, you only need to wait for it to be reviewed. Facebook will review your ad and let you know if it’s been approved or not. Once it’s approved, your ad will start running.