Buyers will be able to take a screenshot of the product they want to purchase and send it to the seller through the Facebook’s messenger app. The seller can then request payment via the messenger app itself.
Facebook is working on a video feature that will allow the merchants to demonstrate and talk about their items to the audience, LIVE!!!! Buyers will be able to take a screenshot of the product they want to purchase and send it to the seller through the Facebook’s messenger app. The seller can then request payment via the messenger app itself.
The merchants can inform the potential buyer via their Facebook Page before the broadcast. Merchants, too, would find this feature useful as they could demo items live and take questions from customers and resolve the issues, if any, instantly. The feature is much like a live Home Shopping Network.
At the moment, select Pages in Thailand are testing this feature. “Thailand is one of our most active Marketplace communities”, said Mayank Yadav, Facebook product manager for Marketplace. However, Facebook has no plans to expand it further but it is adding more-and-more merchants to the waitlist.
Facebook is looking at the live video feature as the means to get revenues beyond what it gets by displaying advertisements in the news feed. The live streams could attract more video-based advertisements, thereby drawing more people to the marketplace which in turn would bring in brands. Facebook also plans to launch new Artificial Intelligence tools to help both merchants and buyers.
At the moment,currently Facebook is busy expanding the list of things it is including in the marketplace. Car listings and housing rentals are extremely popular in Thailand, but eventually Facebook wants to become bigger than Craigslist or eBay.
