Facebook Inc has already become like Craiglist for the people in Indonesia, says product chief Chris Cox. But, it seems the firm is working on ways to broaden its e-commerce ambitions.
Expanding e-commerce ambitions
A few screen shots shared by Facebook during its AdWeek show the firm is testing a new feature named ‘Local Market’. This feature will allow people a new way to buy and sell things on the site. Facebook launched ‘For Sale Groups’ earlier this year, allowing users to list prices and choose locations for the products they want to sell.
It seems as if ‘Local Market’ provides the users with a new way to search all the sets of goods without the need of staying within any specific group. Sets like Household, Sporting, Toys and Books are there in the ‘Local Markets’ section, and if users find a product that they intend to buy, then they can contact the seller by clicking ‘message to buy,’ says a report from BI.
This move, so far, is in-line with the firms e-commerce strategy. Recently, the firm said that it wants to curate the items that businesses are selling from their Pages for which it is expanding its ‘Shop’ section. It also said it was exploring the idea of listing that content, which is being sold in Groups in this section, and it appears that this concept could be ‘Local Markets,’ the report said.
Facebook preparing for next billion people online
Apart from expanding its e-commerce ambitions, Facebook Inc is also making efforts to cash on the next billion people, who will be online soon. Facebook in an effort to make more money from the emerging markets rolled out ‘Slideshow Ads’ on Thursday. These are a series of still images.
It is easier to view these ads on slow net connections and cheap mobile devices, a trait common in emerging markets, in comparison with traditional video ads. Facebook makes more than half of its revenue from overseas.
In a press conference, Cox said “We’re pretty close to a world where most people have Internet access. The people we’re building for look less and less like us.”
At around 10.50 am EDT, Facebook Inc shares were down over 1% at $103.78. Year to date, the stock is up over 31% while in the last one-month, it is up over 15%.
