Facebook Marketplace now has over a billion customers

(Image credit: Facebook)

Facebook has revealed that its ecommerce platform now boasts more than a billion users.

In its latest earnings call, the company said that Facebook Marketplace recently passed the landmark figure, and continues to go from strength to strength as what it calls "the future of commerce".

Elsewhere, Facebook Shops, which only launched in May 2020, has also seen a huge surge in user numbers as small businesses and shoppers alike turn to ecommerce during the pandemic.

Marketplace growth

“We're investing in building the future of commerce,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “We have a long way to go to build out a full-featured commerce platform across our services. This modern commerce system is going to bring together a number of areas where we either already have strong offerings like in ads, community tools and messaging with areas like shops and business messaging and payments.”

Facebook Marketplace now contains over a million Shops, with more than 250 million users speaking to these retailers every month. The online marketplace initially provided a valuable lifeline for small businesses, including those with physical outlets to continue selling during the first coronavirus lockdown.

The platform could be a key growth area for Facebook going forward as the company looks to diversify its offerings away from just social media. Zuckerberg noted on the earnings call that e-commerce had now “become a lot more important” during the pandemic, with plans to strenghten Marketplace even more in the future.

Facebook has admitted to even more ambitious goals set for the next five years as user numbers of e-commerce platforms are expected to rise still further. The company is also working on a number of additional ways for businesses to sell their wares including tagging products in Facebook Live and Instagram Live videos.

Recent research from Salesforce estimates that global e-commerce is continuing to grow at a rapid rate, with the world’s digital shopping traffic expanding by 27% year-on-year.

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Via Engadget

Mike Moore is Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a B2B and B2C tech journalist for nearly a decade, including at one of the UK's leading national newspapers and fellow Future title ITProPortal, and when he's not keeping track of all the latest enterprise and workplace trends, can most likely be found watching, following or taking part in some kind of sport.