While eBay (News - Alert) has been the go-to place for selling items online, Facebook is challenging the position with its new For Sale feature, according to The Daily Mail.
All users have to do is make a regular post offering an item for sale and mark the appropriate category. By joining a “Buy and Sell” group, users gain access to the new feature in order to use the new feature and can also search for available items.
These groups can be centered on a geographical area or a specific interest. The payments are between a buyer and a seller. Users mark the items with the appropriate category, such as electronics or arts and crafts, and can even sell real estate through Facebook (News - Alert).
Facebook announced in a blog post that it is currently testing the new feature and will be rolling it out to all users over the next several weeks.
The company cited examples of a woman selling crochet work and a professional guitarist setting up a group to sell musical instruments as what the company is trying to support.
Not only is Facebooks For Sale a competitor to eBay, but to the non-profit Craigslist as well. Dealing with a user’s friends and family rather than strangers over the Internet could remove the temptation to be dishonest when buying or selling.
Facebook hopes that its groups will offer a higher degree of trust than other platforms. All Facebook activity is rooted in a user’s offline life, so if a user cheats another when selling, it could seriously damage a person’s reputation in real life, not just on some seller ranking behind an anonymous username.
Facebook maintains that all dealings are between users and the company doesn’t get involved, so there might not be as much recourse when users have disputes with each other.
But for now, Facebook has thrown its hat into the ring, and has created quite the disruption with its announcement.