Selling on Facebook Marketplace is one of my favorite ways to make money. It’s the easiest way to get rid of low-value items just lying around your house. If the idea of selling your things sounds intimidating, Facebook Marketplace is the easiest way to make money today.
What is Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is Facebook’s burgeoning ecommerce business. It is a giant flea market for household goods and an online sales channel for established ecommerce businesses. With Facebook’s massive user base, Marketplace is edging out Craigslist as the preferred medium for locally buying, selling, or trading goods.
One of the key selling advantages of Facebook Marketplace is how integrated it is within the Facebook ecosystem. Prospective buyers can reach out to a seller via Messenger or join a Facebook Group in a specific niche. This reduces a lot of friction. In established platforms, like Craiglist, search results are determined by a chronological feed of recent listings or a keyword search. To contact a buyer, you work through Cragislist’s email system without knowing who you are talking to on the other side. Facebook Marketplace eliminates all of that uncertainty.
Facebook’s infamous algorithm arguably knows more about you than you do. From a selling perspective, this is a huge asset. You don’t have to hunt for your buyers — Facebook will bring them right to you.
This makes Marketplace one of the easiest selling platform to get started on. At this point, you have probably interacted with Facebook at some point in your life and understand how Facebook works. With the ability to sell locally, Facebook Marketplace allows you to make money from your couch.
How To Sell on Facebook Marketplace
Listing an item on Marketplace is fairly simple. There are a few core fields you will need to provide information for:
- Item Title
- Price
- Category
- Location
- Description
- Images
Depending on the category you select, there may be additional fields to complete to identify the item’s condition or brand. Listing an item is designed to be a simple process where you can provide as much — or as little — information about the item as you want.
The final step to listing an item on Marketplace is choosing who you want to see your listing. By default your item will be listed to Facebook Marketplace. You can increase the exposure of your item by joining local Facebook buy/sell groups. Listing my items to groups is one of the reasons I’m selling over $100 per month on Facebook Marketplace right now.
Sale groups can vary from local county groups to groups for specific items, such as bikes. Choose a handful of groups to join. When listing an item you can select up to 10 groups to share your listing to.
Related: Sell on eBay without actually selling anything
Getting Your Item to the Buyer
For the majority of the items I sell on Facebook Marketplace, I don’t interact with the buyer. I do what is called a “porch pick-up” where I leave the item in a bag on the front porch with an envelope. The buyer leaves the money in the envelope, usually in the door or under the doormat.
I know what you’re thinking: but Amanda, aren’t you afraid they will steal your stuff?!
Short and simple: no. I’ve never (knock on wood) had a theft. My personal philosophy is that if they take it from me without leaving the money, they must need it more than I did anyways. There are other reasons I prefer this method:
- I work from home so I can intervene if necessary.
- I currently live in a safe residential community with places to leave things out-of-view from the street.
- The Facebook Groups in my area will publicly shame and remove members who steal.
Everyone is different when it comes to exchanging goods with your buyer. Do what works best for you and your situation. Many stay at home parents with young kids may not be comfortable having strangers come to their house. That is totally fine! Here are some great ways to connect with your buyer depending on where you live:
- Use your concierge or front desk clerk to facilitate transactions if you live in an apartment building that has one.
- Meet your buyer in a well-lit parking lot at a gas station or grocery store.
- Ask your church or civic organization to sponsor selling days where buyers and sellers can meet up together in a large group.
- Avoid selling things like electronics, jewelry, or expensive sneakers on Facebook if safety is a concern.
- Check the profile of the person you are selling to before committing to a sale.
Facebook Marketplace continues to evolve, including rolling out a “commerce” rating system. Like Uber or Lyft, buyers and sellers rate each other. As more and more people buy and sell on Facebook Marketplace, I suspect this will become more robust.
This is a huge improvement to the traditional Craigslist buying/selling system where participants had no insight into who they were dealing with. At least for Facebook, leveraging it’s existing social framework creates a stronger buying/selling community.
Shipping on Facebook Marketplace
If you are like me and have sold online for years, Facebook Marketplace is a great new channel you will want to explore. In recent months, Facebook rolled out its digital payment platform. Certain categories of items are now eligible for shipment across the United States. Within 48 hours of activating the shipping feature, I had two sales. Not too shabby!
How to Ship on Facebook Marketplace
The shipping option is only available on the mobile version of Facebook Marketplace. You will have to set up your shipping account and bank information before you can begin shipping.
Opt for “Shipping & Local Pickup” under delivery method to enable shipping. Set your rate and Facebook will send a direct deposit to your registered bank account on a rolling basis.
Facebook does charge a 5% selling fee when you make a sale using the shipping option. This isn’t surprising considering they are processing the payment on your behalf and is cheap compared to eBay or Mercari. The trade-off here is paying a small fee to sell your items to more people.
The primary drawback of the shipping option at this point is that you can’t actually ship the item within Facebook. To get your label, I personally use Pirate Ship but you could also go to the post office and pay for shipping there. When you get your tracking number, upload it onto Facebook Marketplace. I think Facebook will continue to evolve this space so definitely keep an eye on shipping.
How to Ship on Facebook Marketplace
For those of you who are in the throes of spring cleaning and aren’t sure if you’ll be able to host a yard sale this year, Facebook Marketplace is a great alternative. I’m a few months into helping my parents declutter their home. While I primarily sell stuff on eBay, I’ve sold about $400 worth of stuff on Facebook Marketplace. The majority of my transactions are less than $10. Even crazier: the majority of the stuff I’ve sold on Facebook Marketplace probably wouldn’t have even sold at a yard sale!
It will take a longer amount of time to sell stuff on Facebook than a traditional yard sale. I won’t lie about that. Some things sell instantly for me while other things sat for months before selling. With a little patience, I do believe it is possible to use Facebook Marketplace to consistently make money selling stuff out of a your basem*nt or garage. Find a few things around your house that no longer add value to you and start selling!
