John Welsh
John Welsh Mod Squad
12/9/21 6:13 p.m.

Facebook Marketplace -> Vehicles -> Filters -> Owner -> All, Dealership, or Individual

One of my main complains of FB Maketplace is you can not sort sales to exclude dealer sales.  Except, today, I see that you can.  Is this new or has it been this way for a while and I'm later to the game?  

Either way, I'm happy!  

John Welsh
John Welsh Mod Squad
12/9/21 6:21 p.m.

Maybe still filled with failure...

I can see all cars in an area listed by owner but I can't get it to be more specific like only show me Miatas listed by owners.  

What I really want is like what CL would allow which is Miatas from '90-97 by owner only and less than $3k.  The FB still seems not to be able to go that far.  

 

EDIT: stumbling my way through...Maybe I can see only Miatas from '90-'97 under $3k but it is not done through entering the keyword Miata.  Instead I have to choose Mazda, then Miata and then just the years.  

Kreb (Forum Supporter)
Kreb (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
12/9/21 7:20 p.m.

Facebook marketplace sucks, and what particularly bothers me is that I don't think they much care. 

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter)
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) SuperDork
12/9/21 9:24 p.m.

It's targeted to a certain audience with a certain attention span and level of verbal skills.  It's probably perfect to them.  It was never meant for car guys looking for specific things.

johndej
johndej Dork
12/9/21 10:23 p.m.

Yup, also seems like both buying and selling I've had twice as many flakes as Craigslist for the same items.

pointofdeparture
pointofdeparture GRM+ Memberand UltimaDork
12/9/21 10:43 p.m.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

Facebook marketplace sucks, and what particularly bothers me is that I don't think they much care. 

I actually know someone who works for them and he's indicated that they don't seem interested in doing a whole lot more than what's required to keep it running, because it clearly finds an audience even with all the problems.

dclafleur
dclafleur Reader
12/9/21 10:52 p.m.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

It's targeted to a certain audience with a certain attention span and level of verbal skills.  It's probably perfect to them.  It was never meant for car guys looking for specific things.

Yeah but has something taken over for car guys looking for specific things?

RaabTheSaab
RaabTheSaab New Reader
12/10/21 8:07 a.m.

Marketplace isn’t just terrible for cars. I’ve tried to sell music gear and the amount of low ball offers is crazy (like $100 on a keyboard I was selling for $500 that was worth 1k). Also, trying to negotiate on an item sight unseen is a new phenomenon to me. Realistically, I suspect that marketplace doesn’t really exist to help users buy and sell things, but instead tries to generate predictive algorithms based on your searches that they can then sell to other companies. 

pirate
pirate Dork
12/10/21 9:59 a.m.

I don't do any social media at all by choice but can sometimes see what's for sale. I understand they want it to be members only to contact sellers through Facebook but allowing phone numbers or email address in ads would probably sell more.

Kreb (Forum Supporter)
Kreb (Forum Supporter) GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
12/10/21 9:59 a.m.

In reply to pointofdeparture :

Craigslist was built by a few guys working out of a house in San Francisco.  FB could probably write new code in a matter of days and make it much better. But I think that AnthonyGS nails it: Their attitude is "You don't really want a Corvair. You want a Nova, or maybe a Vette. Here, let me reach into my bag. OK, how about an old GI Joe doll with Super-Action-Fist!". The coming idiocracy will have sponsors, one of which is.......

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter)
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) SuperDork
12/10/21 10:03 a.m.

In reply to dclafleur :

No.  So there is a market that has a need.  

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter)
ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) HalfDork
12/10/21 12:23 p.m.

I've come to view FB Marketplace as a big online flea market; you can move along the crap you don't want very efficiently and with low engagement, but it's not good for complex transactions or highly detailed sales.  You get lots of eyeballs, lots of riffraff, and don't have to feel bad about giving people 3 word answers or no answer at all if you don't want to deal with them.

wearymicrobe
wearymicrobe PowerDork
12/10/21 12:32 p.m.

The sales groups are the way to go. Looking for a chopper there is a group or si for that. Want vintage Ducati parts group for that as well. They tend to be better curated and you can put wanted ads up for free and it always seems to work for me. 

 

Honestly acebook as much as I hate it is better for actually selling things then Craigslist at least on the west coast. 

Trent
Trent PowerDork
12/10/21 12:49 p.m.

Facebook makes money through every click AND for how much time you linger on a given page. It would be contrary to profit to make things more concise. I just don't see it happening.

 

That said Marketplace is far more effective for me. I haven't had a genuine (non scam) response that wasn't an insulting lowball from craigslist in the last 30 transactions.  I still list items on both for some reason.

93gsxturbo
93gsxturbo UltraDork
12/10/21 2:33 p.m.

Marketplace has 99% of the traffic in Milwaukee, but its a joke of an interface and the ads are horrid.  Doesnt matter, thats where the deals are.

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