The inside story of Facebook Marketplace

The inside story of Facebook Marketplace

Second, only to Amazon, Facebook Marketplace is among the world’s largest e-commerce platforms, hosting over a billion monthly active users. Deb Liu— former PM for the team that pitched, built, and launched Marketplace — provides an unprecedented look into the product’s development.

The Early Days

Social networking is not just about sharing with friends— in many places, e-commerce is a core part of the “jobs to be done” on Facebook.

The Launch

The launch of Marketplace wasn’t pretty— a small bug in the fraud queues lead to a massive flood of violating items. Although it was quickly cleaned up, this was just the first in many lessons about what could go wrong on the path to success.

The Testing

Rotational product manager Bowen Pan joined Facebook and began working on enabling commerce within Facebook groups.

The Pivot

Virtually all two-sided marketplaces struggle with bringing on enough supply and/or demand. Facebook had ample buyers & sellers but failed at connecting them. This left two options:

Source

Similar products

Get in