Mark Zuckerberg, you have disappointed me yet again. I am broken, lying in the gutter, feeling lower than Yann LeCun when he had to start reporting to Alexandr Wang.
I have begged, pleaded, screamed (OK, blogged one time) about my most sincere wish for Facebook Marketplace (the only good part about Facebook).
The default message — “Hi, is this available?” — drives sellers nuts.
Sure, to you, a billionaire who is unlikely to have recently purchased a used lamp, this sounds like a reasonable opening line. But trust me, everyone hates it.
With Meta’s $600 billion investment into AI, this is a perfect place to focus resources and attention. (Forget Vibes! This is way more important!)
Starting soon, Facebook Marketplace will have AI-suggested messages — but only as follow-up questions. That opening salvo that stings the ears of sellers everywhere remains the mind-numbing, “Is this available?”
If you’ve only bought things on Facebook Marketplace and haven’t offered anything for sale, you might not realize how annoying the “is this available?” problem is.
There have been times when I’ve listed an item I want to get rid of ASAP for $0, and gotten 10 messages right away, all asking if it’s available. It’s hard to tell who will actually come pick it up, and who is just window-shopping and won’t respond to a follow-up. (This happens a lot!)
Some sellers — especially those with more expensive or niche items that may be sitting for a while, such as a boat — seem to get really mad about this. Browse around Marketplace a bit, and you’ll start to notice in the description of listings, some will say “DO NOT ASK ME IF IT’S AVAILABLE!!”
(One note: It’s possible to change this default message, and you can even permanently edit your default. I changed mine to, “I’m interested, when can I arrange pickup?” to get things actually moving.)
There are some interesting changes coming to Marketplace, though: It’s adding comments to listings, which I am a little nervous about. There have definitely been some weird and wacky listings I’ve seen where my first thought was “I wish there were a comments section to read,” but I do wonder how useful it will actually be on more banal listings.
There will also be a useful social element, similar to a Pinterest board, where you can save listings and share the board with others. The obvious use case here would be if you’re shopping for furniture with roommates or a partner and want to share options for a new coffee table or lamp.
Like I said, Marketplace is, to me, the best part of Facebook. I absolutely love it, and have found tons of treasures there. I’m delighted that it’s getting some updates, and slightly surprised it’s taken this long.
Facebook is definitely aware that Marketplace is one of the reasons that Gen Z actually still uses Facebook. In its press release for this new update, Facebook noted that 1 in 4 “young adults” who are daily active Facebook users use Marketplace daily.
Now, if Facebook could only solve my last other gripe, which is when I keep getting shown listings that cross a body of water. Are you writing this down, Zuck?