Facebook has launched a new feature within the Marketplace section on its mobile app, and a selection of eBay’s Daily Deals are now available to select users through the Facebook Marketplace platform.
According to Tech Crunch, eBay Daily Deals can be shopped directly in Facebook’s app, but checkout still takes place on eBay’s eCommerce website through an in-app browser.
Launched publicly last fall, the idea behind the Facebook Marketplace section is to collect the “for sale” postings from the social network’s various “buy and sell” groups for an easier way to search and shop offerings from local sellers. Users can also list their own items for sale, as well as chat with potential buyers and sellers via Marketplace’s integration with Messenger.
During this test run, some users will see a new Daily Deals section in the Facebook Marketplace. The deals will emphasize products in the consumer electronics, fashion and home & garden categories, with approximately 100 new items posted daily. The deals can be shared with others via SMS or Messenger, which will link to the deal via eBay’s ShopBot mobile app.
“We’re conducting a test to determine if people are interested in shopping for discounted products when they visit Marketplace,” said Facebook product manager, Akash Anand, in a statement.
For now, the feature is available to a small percentage of people in the U.S., and is displaying on both the Android and iOS Facebook mobile apps.
“At eBay, we are always looking to broaden our reach and surface inventory through new channels,” a spokesperson for eBay said in the news release. “We are currently running a test with a small subset of people on Facebook in the U.S. who can browse eBay’s Daily Deals on Facebook Marketplace.”
This isn’t the first time eCommerce platform eBay has explored sales options with Facebook. Last year, news was reported that the company was testing a personalized shopping assistant dubbed ShopBot on Facebook’s Messenger app to lure more of Facebook’s 1 billion users over to eBay.
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