Facebook’s rolling out another new option for Facebook Marketplace, with a ‘Home Service Professionals’ directory being made available to all users within the US ‘within the coming weeks’.
As you can see from the above screenshots, the new directory will enable users to search through, and connect with, relevant contractors for home services. The listings, formulated in partnership with Handy, HomeAdvisor and Porch, will include star ratings, and will make it easy to obtain a quote from your chosen sources.
According to Facebook:
“More people ask for recommendations related to home services on Facebook in the US than any other topic. Since the beginning of the year, millions of people have asked their friends for suggestions related to home services, such as house cleaners, plumbers and contractors.”
This new addition caters to that demand, while also diversifying Facebook’s Marketplace offering, making the platform an even more all-encompassing app, and helping to maximize engagement.
Definitely, it’ll make Facebook a bigger consideration for contractors – while most would already have their services listed with the aforementioned discovery platforms, the new option will quickly become more important, particularly, as noted, given the prevalence of such requests already flowing through the network.
Facebook’s Marketplace is an interesting project for the company. What started as a basic challenger for buy, swap and sell platforms, and was launched in response to the popularity of such groups on The Social Network, has since added in more specific features, like a dedicated section for vehicle sales, for rental properties, and has even experimented with advertising products from eBay and other partners.
Facebook’s deployment of new in-stream payment options, including an integration with PayPal, have also focused on peer-to-peer transfer, as opposed to traditional eCommerce transactions, between people and businesses. That puts Marketplace in a unique position. Could Facebook Marketplace actually be the platform’s avenue to enabling full shopping functionality on Facebook, while bypassing the more common, more regulated processes?
Certainly, Facebook’s exploring its options. It may be that through Marketplace, Facebook could become an even more dominant platform, and much bigger consideration for a wider range of businesses.
It’ll be interesting to see what sector Facebook takes aim at next with their Marketplace platform.