Case Study: Solving Facebook’s Marketplace Listing Problem
Why more than half of the FREE listings are not actually FREE
--
Background
Facebook Marketplace was introduced in 2016 as a place for people to buy and sell within their local communities.
“More than one in three people on Facebook in the US use Marketplace every month.” -Facebook Newsroom
The Problem
Imagine you want to check out some of the sweet deals in your area, maybe even find some cool free stuff. You would probably do something like this:
- Log into Facebook
- Click on “Marketplace”
- Filter by FREE
Then you realize…
People list items as FREE, but they aren’t. 😑
Next you filter by $1, only to discover…
People list items as $1, but they aren’t. 🙄
Finally, you’ll wonder…
What’s with the $123,456,789 and $999,999,999 listings? 🤔️
Empathy
This was my experience when I was looking for a good deal. To better understand what was going on for sellers, I did a cognitive walkthrough from the seller’s perspective by listing my unneeded items on the Marketplace.
In addition, I did an expert review and heuristic analysis to get more context on the product, and identify other potential problems.
User Research
After analyzing both the buyer and seller perspectives, I wanted to validate if the problems I discovered were actual pain points for users. In addition, I wanted to do some additional needs finding.
Primary Research
I recruited a large sample of both buyers and sellers on Facebook Marketplace by messaging them directly. I was able to set up live interviews, remote interviews, and chat message conversations.
Secondary Research
In addition to recruiting users, I scoured news articles, group forums, and the internet to discover what other people were saying.
Competitive Analysis
Finally, I researched competitors including Craigslist, Ebay, and Etsy. What are Marketplace’s competitive advantages? How do its competitors solve these problems?
Synthesis — What I discovered
My cognitive walkthrough, user research, and competitive analysis revealed the following:
When a seller creates a listing on Marketplace, the input field for “price” is forced to be a single monetary value between $0 and $999,999,999.
But sellers need more listing options to choose from, including:
- Make an offer
- Choose from multiple related items with different prices
- Contact seller / Ask for a quote
Because sellers don’t have these options, they often choose:
- $0 (Free)
- $1
- $123,456,789
- $999,999,999
In addition, unethical sellers purposefully list their items as FREE or $1 to attract attention to their listings. Like this guy:
Why This Matters
- Buyers are frustrated when they click on a listing to find out the price does not match the description.
- Ethical sellers are frustrated because there are no other pricing options.
- Unethical sellers are exploiting the system and getting away with it.
Scenario Personas
Using my research and data synthesis, I created scenario personas to capture the different emotions, reactions, reasoning, and behaviors of my users.
I chose to not define my personas by stereotypical demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity, or stock photos in order to avoid biased assumptions.
Jobs To Be Done
My research and data synthesis also helped me to find patterns and pain points that I could translate into jobs-to-be-done:
- “When I try selling something, I want buyers to make offers so I can discover who is willing to pay the most.”
- “When I have multiple related items to sell, I want to tag the price of each item in a single listing so I don’t have to waste time making multiple listings.”
- “When I list my service on Facebook Marketplace, I want people to contact me about pricing so I can give them personalized quotes.”
- “When I browse through listings, I want to report sellers for lying about their prices so their listings can stop showing up in my feed.”
Ideation
Keeping my scenario personas and jobs-to-be-done in mind, I sketched and wire-framed several different ideas and potential solutions.
After exploring several ideas, I chose to prototype the solutions that had the greatest impact on the user experience, and could be easily implemented.
Visual Design
Too many designers feel the need to redesign the entire UI of a product in order to fix its problems. I chose to avoid this approach because:
- Facebook has far more data and research than I do.
- Redesigning the Marketplace would force users to learn a new system.
- I want a solution that can be realistically implemented.
Because I used an existing design system, I was able to go straight from sketches to high fidelity designs.
My Solution (4 Parts)
1. Allow sellers to choose different pricing options
Don’t force sellers to list a single monetary value.
2. Allow sellers to tag items in their listing with different prices
Don’t force sellers to make multiple listings or to use the description to designate certain prices for related items.
3. Allow buyers to report sellers for fake price advertising
Out of the 10 options on Facebook for reporting a listing, none of them include a way to report fake price advertising.
4. Implement algorithms to auto-detect fake price advertising
Facebook boasts that “behind the scenes AI is making Marketplace more efficient and personalized for buyers.” If that is the case, then the AI should start detecting fake price advertising and automatically report such listings.
Additional Improvements (3 Parts)
The following are improvements that could be made to the web version of Facebook Marketplace when creating a listing:
1. Always display the input field label
Don’t use the placeholder as a label. It makes the form difficult to scan when reviewing the input.
2. Report invalid input in the user’s terms
Don’t convert invalid input to “NaN” (a coding term known as “Not a Number”). Use terminology your user will understand.
3. Don’t allow the user to proceed until all input errors are fixed
I noticed that once the “Next” button was enabled, it didn’t auto disable if you went back and made a mistake while changing the price. This causes a broken state where you can submit a listing with the price as NaN.
Prototyping
Since my solution was centered around creating a listing and typing in information, I used Framer X as my prototyping tool because it can utilize keyboard input from the user.
Usability Testing
Using my Framer X prototype, I randomly assigned 5 users through 4 different scenarios.
Scenario 1
“Think of an item in your home you no longer need. Imagine you wanted to see how much people on Facebook would be willing to pay for it. Show me how you would list that item on Facebook Marketplace.”
Scenario 2
“What is something you collect? Imagine you wanted to sell that collection. Show me how you would list that collection so multiple people can buy individually priced parts of that collection.”
Scenario 3
“Imagine you’ve started a side gig where you sell people baked goods made in your home. You’re willing to take any requests, and you want to give quotes based on the orders people make. Create a listing in Facebook Marketplace advertising your service.
Scenario 4
“Imagine you’re looking for used board games on Facebook Marketplace, and you clicked on a result because it said it was $1. After reading the description, you realize the buyer is actually asking for $20. How would you report this buyer for listing a misleading price?”
Results
“Wow, this would be nice to have these options when selling something.” — Anonymous User
“This is amazing. Why hasn’t Facebook done this already?” —Anonymous User
All 5 testers were able to successfully finish the 4 test scenarios with consistent, positive, qualitative feedback. This means that users could:
- Create a listing with different pricing options
- Tag multiple items in a listing with different prices
- Report fake price advertising
In fact, one user was so delighted about the different pricing options and afterwards disappointed when they realized the prototype wasn’t real.
Next Steps
This was only the first step to solving Facebook’s Marketplace listing problems. The next step would be to get people to stop listing items like their cereal box:
No, but really, in all seriousness, the next user pain points observed were:
- Sellers listing items that no one cares about
- Sellers overpricing their used items
Analytics and A/B Testing
In addition, if I had access to Facebook’s development team, then I would implement analytics and do some A/B testing to further validate my proposed solutions.
Project Takeaways
- Listen to your users and you’ll quickly be able to identify pain points.
- You don’t need to redesign an entire product to solve its problems.
- Be ethical. Utilize AI and proactive users to combat unethical behavior.
Contact Me!
Thank you for your time. I would love to hear what you think!
Send me an email at mitchclements.design@gmail.com,
or message me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mitchell-clements
Sincerely, Mitch Clements
P.S If you enjoyed reading this, then discover how the first app I created reached 10,000+ users and ranked #2 in the Google Play app store.
When I’m not designing, innovating, or coding, you will find me hanging in a hammock, driving around in my Jeep, listening to a Coldplay song, hunting for a geocache, or playing expert pro drums on Rock Band.
