Facebook Marketplace is a massively popular and lucrative e-commerce platform. But given its size and the fact that you’re browsing the internet of all places, just like anywhere else online, you’ll eventually run into something bizarre and hilarious.
That’s where the ‘Insane FB Marketplace’ project on Instagram comes in. The curator of this account collects and shares some of the weirdest, funniest, and most nonsensical finds that shoppers have stumbled upon on the platform and felt like they just had to share it with the world. Scroll down to see just how peculiar things can get. Some of these pics, from wins to fails, are bound to make you do a double-take.
We reached out to the creator of the 'Insane Facebook Marketplace' account, and they were happy to tell us more about the project. You'll find Bored Panda's interview with them below.
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It would be an understatement to say that Facebook Marketplace is ‘big’ or ‘impactful.’ It is absolutely gargantuan, not least because it has Meta, Facebook’s parent company, backing it.
Facebook itself is sprawling. DemandSage states that there are overall 3.07 billion active monthly users and 2.11 billion daily users on Facebook. It’s a huge social network, so there’s lots of opportunities for sales here.
BusinessDasher notes that the e-commerce platform has a jaw-dropping 1.1 billion users worldwide. 474 million of that 1+ billion users are considered to be active users.
It’s estimated that 16% of people who log in to Facebook do this just so that they can shop on Marketplace. They’re dedicated users of the e-commerce platform. It goes to show just how used it is, even if you or anyone you know prefers to buy and sell things on the seemingly endless number of alternative platforms out there.
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Bored Panda was interested to learn about the inspiration behind the project. According to the curator, they saw an interesting niche that needed to be filled.
"I didn't think there was a place for people to talk and comment on insane Facebook Marketplace listings, so thought it could be cool to start it, and it took off," they told us in an email.
"The community is new but already active. So many people send me things daily and it seems like it has become top of mind to share," the creator of the Instagram account opened up about just how engaged their followers are.
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We were curious to get the creator's thoughts on why Facebook Marketplace has such a huge presence on the internet. "I think it is so popular because you can find a lot of good deals and items locally, and that people also think that they can sell their random things that probably don't have much value," they said.
The creator of 'Insane Facebook Marketplace' warned everyone to be wary of potential scams. Facebook Marketplace, just like any other e-commerce platform, has some shady characters from time to time.
However, the curator noted that, somewhat ironically, not all scammers are good at communicating, so it's not always obvious what the scam even is. "Like 9/10 people that contact you seem to be scammers from other countries which is weird because I don't even know what they want from people or what the scam is," they said that the only thing that is clear is that there's some type of scam involved.
According to the creator of 'Insane Facebook Marketplace', it is "so much fun having this account and growing a little community." They also told Bored Panda that people shouldn't be shy about getting in touch with them via Instagram or email if they stumble upon any 'insane' finds on Marketplace. If you see something bizarre, definitely reach out!
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Around 14% of all Facebook users from 70 countries have bought something on Marketplace. In the United States, this number stands at 7%. Marketplace had a revenue of $26 billion in 2021.
The unfortunate side of things is that roughly 17% of Marketplace users revealed that they’ve been scammed at some point in time.
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BusinessDasher states that the biggest group of Facebook Marketplace users are men aged 25 to 34. They make up around 17.9% of all users.
Women aged 25 to 34 make up 13.8% of all Marketplace users. The people using Marketplace the least are Facebook scrollers over the age of 65 and teenagers.
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As per CapitalOne Shopping’s research, up to 1.228 billion shoppers buy something on Marketplace, and up to 40% of Facebook users shop on the e-commerce platform.
According to their data, 491 million active users log in to Facebook to shop on Marketplace, buying things from the 250 million sellers from around the world.
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One of the reasons why e-commerce is so successful and popular on social networks like Facebook is because it uses the structures already in place.
You’re already using the network socially; you spend a lot of time on it, so it’s less of a ‘jump’ to using Marketplace, which is already integrated there, than looking elsewhere.
In other words, it’s super convenient. And if you’re using a site as much as you do, it probably means that you (more or less) trust it.
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But trust is hard to win and easy to lose. So, e-commerce platforms have to be very open, communicative, and transparent. As a customer, you want to have easy access to information about privacy, shipping, returns, what to do if you’ve been scammed, etc.
There are bound to be scammers on every site, but how they’re dealt with can either win over the general community or push it away towards your competitors.
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Currently, the ‘Insane FB Marketplace’ account has 51.5k loyal Instagram followers. This is very quick growth for a new project that started only recently, in December 2024.
We’ve reached out to the account's curator via email and Instagram to learn more about it and e-commerce as a whole, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from them.
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Any large enough online community, whether it’s a group, e-commerce platform, social network, or anything else, is going to have some weird content on it. Given enough users sharing things over a long enough time frame, it’s rather inevitable.
The reality is that despite people’s commonalities, they also lead very different lives and have varying understandings of what is and isn’t acceptable. One person’s trash or treasure can be someone else’s reason to take a screenshot and send it to everyone they know for a laugh.
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Which of these pics confused or amused you the most? Have you ever stumbled upon something as bizarre as this while scrolling through any online marketplace, dear Pandas? Have you ever been scammed while shopping on the internet?
Let us know in the comments, and if you have any warning to share with everyone else about online shopping, go for it.
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