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Selling on Facebook Marketplace is giving me gray hair. Their filters are so extremely sensitive that I’ve had several listings flagged for review and prohibited for using such words as:
Animal Print (to describe a women’s top)
Beer (to describe the writing on a men’s hat and glass beer mug)
Hawaiian (to describe a tropical print men’s shirt)
Turtleneck (to describe the collar on a men’s shirt)
This is insane! If eBay’s filters were so sensitive, half of the listings would be banned! I’m NOT selling beer, animals, turtles or a trip to Hawaii. I’m selling giftware and clothing!If Facebook Marketplace doesn’t fix this soon, I’m going to be banned. As it is, it’s barely worth the time and effort. There is a glitch when people are scrolling that causes them to accidentally hit the inquiry button sending the message, “Is this still available?” When I reply, “yes” I most often get ghosted. Only a few people have said they hit it in error. I quote shipping. I get ghosted. I make appointments to meet up the next day. I get ghosted. I respond, follow through, answer ALL their questions in a professional manner. I get ghosted. I’m about to ghost the FB marketplace altogether. I’ve had the occasional good sale. $80 jeans, $25 jacket, $60 sewing table, $20 top. But mostly? I get ghosted. Thanks for letting me vent. Ghost out.
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I’m starting to believe that the Facebook Marketplace is a ruse. Although Facebook users are invited to advertise, I believe it was really set up to for big business advertising. I’ve searched key words for some of the items I was flagged on and found large sellers, selling new product.
I know you don’t care for conspiracy theorists but it went through my mind last night when I did this search (before my post on SL) that someone may be reporting my listings to Facebook because they sell the same brand or similar shirt. Or, it could be since mine is an older style, it was reported as fake (or the word turtleneck kicked it out). Anyone can easily report a listing or seller. While I’m in no way “competition”, it’s ironic to me that one particular listing was good for a week then suddenly under review” right after I had an inquiry on it for “Is this still available?”
No matter why it’s under review, I don’t think Facebook is yet prepared to run a professional, e-commerce site without a lot of improvements. As an “advertising site” directing buyers to big box businesses who process their own payments. Yes.
Messenger allows for payments but some buyers do not like the debit card only requirement. Personally, I setup a separate checking account for just “Messenger” transactions.
For small sellers, it is just another Craigslist with a payment option that many buyers will not opt in too. Just my thoughts.
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Facebook has all but destroyed marketplace. They barely even let me see local stuff – it’s all brand new junk listings and advertisements. I can’t sell anything on there to save my life when I used to sell everything I listed.
Then if I search for something specific they clog up my feed with similar items for the next month.
If my own personal frequent marketplace searching and browsing is any indication, the problem is definitely that people simply can’t see my item in an organic browsing fashion. -
I think Facebook has too many problems at the moment to worry about the marketplace – every government is after them and other social media sites. They are getting banned/shutdown all over the place, and legislation is being put on them everywhere they still can operate.
Zuckerberg and his top brass can’t even come to Canada anymore without being detained for questioning. There are even calls in Canada to ban Facebook until they clean themselves up.
Will be interesting to see what happens to them – I don’t know anyone young that uses Facebook, young adults even don’t use it, and with all the political and social issues around it, I see it slowly dying as costs to police it increase.
A couple more incidents like the recent New Zealand attack will kill it quickly in most countries. The “cleaners” they hire can’t keep up with the junk that is posted on there platform.
We’ll see what happens, but the marketplace is probably not on Facebook’s radar for improvements at the moment.
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I’ll buy off these local marketplaces, but actually selling stuff on them is a huge waste of time. It’s like a neverending series of people being interested, scheduling a pickup, then no-showing. The last guy I sold to wouldn’t talk to me when he showed up, opened the side door on his van, then motioned for me to put the item in. I also had to remind him to pay me. Hours later he messaged me and said I forced him to buy the item because I forcibly put the item in his vehicle.
This event + one other probably sucked up around 6-8 hours of my time. That’s two items and maybe $80. I think I’ll stick to paying eBay fees.
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Wow! That’s a new one! I too have had people just sit in their cars and have me hand the item to them through the window. They just wanna grab the item, pay and get on their way. The worse part for me is the ghosting and the wasted time and energy. I lost a sale the other day because I held the deal open for another buyer who requested a shipping quote. I was quoting shipping for both people. The first never showed the courtesy of a reply and the second lost interest and didn’t respond. All within just 24 hours.
I listed wall art for the first time today on FB Marketplace. Wish me luck….
Oh, have you noticed the change? We no longer can see views on our FBM listings until we click on each one. I sure don’t like that.
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I have a reseller friend locally who does really well on FB Marketplace for some reason. On his recommendation, I used it to get rid of a bulky, fragile West Elm chandelier that was in our house when we moved into it. It sold after quite a while but overall was a pretty lame experience, and I wouldn’t do it again.
Regarding flaky buyers ghosting you – the way I deal with Craigslist buyers is to give them a couple windows of time when I’m already planning to be home and can be interrupted (example: Sunday between 3 and 5 because I know I’ll be at home doing food prep for the week). They can come over anytime during those time slots, but those are the only options. Then if they no-show, it doesn’t rankle me quite as much since I wasn’t going out of my way to accommodate them, and hey, I got all my food prep done.
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For a host of reasons, we prefer not to have anyone come to our rural home except for the rare sale of furniture. For smalls, I meet up at a store parking lot 10 minutes away or in town if running errands.
When arrangements are made for the next day, time and place confirmed, I give a buyer the benefit of my doubt that they forgot to do the final “I’m on my way” and I go to the meeting place anyway. It’s now been the pattern that if they don’t do the final confirmation, they don’t show up and they disappear. But if I don’t show up and they do, I’m 10-15 minutes behind schedule. Such a simple thing to communicate but apparently the new norm, to not.
Thanks for sharing your routine. Another house, another area, I might have considered the same.
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Our local “Regional Police” has what they call “Safe Trading Zones” setup on the edge of police stations – basically a parking area with lots of cameras and a panic button like they have on college campuses.
I’ve used it a few times on pricey items, and avoided one buyer who didn’t want to go there to trade.
I think it is a good way to deal if your area has one – makes everyone feel safe and comfortable. I know my size and appearance is scary to some people alone!
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I think it depends on your area as to how well and safely you can sell on FB market.
I usually only sell items that are a pain to ship
When they ask were are you located I answer with the east side near Cleveland elementary, they have to message me when they’re on their way before I give my actual address.
I invite them to my home or garage, they hear the dogs bark and I don’t advertise the fact that reselling is my business. I close the patio blinds so they don’t see the storage building behind my house.
The folks around here are pretty good about communicating and I’m rarely if ever ghosted.
Some of my success may be due to years of retail experience on my part and knowing what people in the area are used to seeing for price.
Just like eBay listings, don’t talk it up too much, when they come to see it, don’t talk at all, let them absorb it in and they’ll talk themselves into it if they haven’t already.
It seems I always have a number of inquiries so if an in person lower offer is mentioned I just say there are others waiting on your decision to buy it, works every time.
If I receive a message asking if I’ll take $? I just ignore it, if they persist I’ll answer ‘firm on price’. The only exceptions would be if it’s not getting any action and/or there is some travel distance and I’m eager to sell it.
Again, my area may be unique, the metro is about 250,000. -
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