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I hate FB Marketplace. It's actively hostile to buyers. Like, try to find a "kinda nice" bicycle. You can't find the bicycle category (though it does exist a
by inanutshellus 4y ago
I hate FB Marketplace.
It's actively hostile to buyers.
Like, try to find a "kinda nice" bicycle. You can't find the bicycle category (though it does exist as a sub-group of Sporting Goods), you can't just say "show me bikes" unless you hack the URL, you can search for the word "bicycle" but for some reason people selling a "Specialized Rockhopper" think you know it's a bicycle so don't use that word.
Oh, and when selling, they just suggest random categories instead of letting you choose from their heirarchy. So you get bicycles in Hobbies. You get them in Sporting Goods. You get them in Bicycles. But... You can't search for them by type.
That's not even complaining about the lack of attributes, like "type=BMX" or "type=Mountain" or "Size=Large" or "Frame Material=Carbon Fiber"... all of which are in Craigslist and eBay.
And! when searching, they actively work to inject ebay-like selling (non-local) into the mix by resetting my distance preferences every time I change the search. "Find bicycles" -> "Find bicycles in 30 miles" -> "Find 'Specialized Rockhopper'" -> Why am I getting "Ships To You" results?! Why am I getting non-bicycle results?! Oh. They reset my distance again.
^-- BTW they do this because they actually make money when the sale happens through FB. If you just buy it in-person with cash they don't get a cut. Misaligned incentives, as they say.
And! even if I do find the bicycle category, if narrow the category by searching with a word in there, like "Rockhopper" it takes me out of the bicycle category to do the search!
G. A. R. B. A. G. E.
- adolph 4y agoDammit Jim, I'm a cyclist, not an ontologist! [edit to correct snowclone]
- latchkey 4y agoIs this still available?
- shabbatt 4y agoSellers too. Not to mention harassment/racism/phobia when the price isnt "right". Facebook usage seems to be correlated with reduced cognition, it invites the bottom rung of society
- zelphirkalt 4y agoIt is like a bad magazine, which only has content about B celebs and other trash, some people being fully aware of it being trash, but aside from those, no one but the bottom rung would stick around to be there.
- elcritch 4y agoIt surprises me how much companies fail at the basics of online shopping.. FB market is a garbage fire. They’re more interested in selling ads than making a market place. For new stuff Amazon is huge and cluttered yet still manages to run circles around almost every other online store for similar reasons to what you listed. The only exception I’ve found is BH Photo and Video. But all the others like Walmart/Jet, Home Depot, Newegg (now) etc all just “don’t get it”. Craig’s list really nails the simplicity and usefulness of online used markets. It still amazes me.
- 762236 4y agoIsn't Home Depot licensing Amazon's store logic? I don't remember why I have that impression, as I haven't been to Home Depot in ages, but for some reason it made me feel that Amazon was running their store.
- elcritch 4y agoI never heard anything like that. The Home Depot site doesn't feel much like Amazon's, but maybe they do and they just don't use it well. I have a friend who did some contract work for Home Depot and it sounded like they followed VP-empire-building-driven development.
- mmsimanga 4y agoThat read like vampire building driven development.
- Gareth321 4y agoI feel like their product development began with the question "how can we sell more ads" instead of "how can we make a good marketplace"?
- asdff 4y agoAmazon suffers from this a little as well to be honest. Search something and pull up a page, search again and you are in this obscure category that has like 20% of the Thing A you are interesed on Amazon because some stuff is listed in other categories. Sometimes it also doesn't seem to respect my price ceilings on search filters.
- legitster 4y agoIt's been so frustrating to use FB Marketplace. It was surprisingly awesome for the first year. But they just couldn't help themselves.
- pkamb 4y agoI'll never buy a shipped item on Facebook Marketplace. Shop showing me them!
- dvzk 4y agoFor bicycles in particular, most of the Facebook activity and impressions come from local buy and sell groups dedicated to cycling and MTB. If you live within a populated region a lot of these groups will exist. It's where much of the enthusiast market is still located, sadly.
- inanutshellus 4y agoI should've included this in my rant. If you have anything of value, instead of posting it on Marketplace (because it's a dumpster fire), people make these obscure fb groups you're just supposed to magically know about and hock their wares there. It's really infuriating. Just sell on Craigslist, people.
- bufferoverflow 4y agoForget specialized bicycles. FB marketplace sucks at finding even the most popular items. Try searching for "MacBook air M1" or "MacBook air 2021" (without quotes) . It will show you all kinds of macbooks, including old garbage from 2013. I just want the most basic search feature - return results that include all my search terms. That's too hard apparently.