Social Media Sites Changing The Way We Trade

I’m sure you can remember the huge buzz that went around when Ebay first launched and people could easily sell almost anything that wanted. It opened up the second hand trading market to a truly global scale and started a whole new breed of amateur online shop keeper, who later went on to start trading new items as well. Of course Ebay is still a very popular website, but there are some new kids on the block in the form of social sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook first saw the potential in allowing people to advertise items on their site a very short time after they launched. The Facebook ‘marketplace’ was an instant success and people jumped at the chance to combine social interaction with making a little extra money via trading items. Now it can be argued that sites such as Gumtree and Craig’s List have been providing this trading platform for over a decade, but the newer social powerhouses have taken it to another level. They encourage a more discerning buying process whereby you can do some background research on the seller, request more information, or even ask the opinion of some experts in the field. For example, before you make that commitment to buy one of those second hand bikes you can request more pics, query your friends about it, or ask those people who are hanging out in the cycling community section if you are making the right choice, and if not, what is the right one?

Further more, with the likes of Twitter to your disposal you can flip the advertising process on its head by requesting second hand items that you are seeking. For example an extreme sports enthusiast might post on their twitter profile that they are looking for 7’6” surfboards, and because of the potential size and power of the networks here, they will likely find multiple people very quickly who have suitable surfboards for sale