Where would you geographically expand the Facebook Marketplace if it was only available in the US and Canada?

The Feature which let Facebook users, discover, buy and sell items with people in their community, is already available in US and Canada. For Now, Facebook Marketplace is only available in the Facebook app. There is a shop icon at the bottom of the app, which opens photos of items that people near the user have listed for sale. Users can also search for certain items and filter results by location, category or price.

SWOT Analysis:

Strength	Weakness
1. India has second biggest population in the world. 2. Nearly 239.65 million Facebook users in India alone, make it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. 3. As of July 2021, 98.5% of active users accessed their Facebook account from Mobile devices. Refence: Statistia	1. Many of the Facebook users use Facebook for entertainment and chat. 2. Authenticity of user and product is still a big issue in the Indian market.
Opportunity	Threat
1. Large userbase 2. Large no. of community for different purpose.	1. There is already large E-commerce player in the market such as Amazon, Flipkart etc. in different verticals.

Facebook would likely prioritize driving engagement and User experience further to strengthen its network and increase its revenue.

List strategic choices

· Enter new businesses

· Offer new products such as car

· Enter localized product segment.

List Evaluation Criteria

UX, revenue, competitive landscape, execution and effort.

Evaluate strategic choice

Here we will choose Localized Product Segment and evaluate it on Evaluation Criteria.

Enabling user to purchase the product through marketplace enhances the user experience while in some rare scenarios some users might have bad experience due to faulty product or victims of scams.

From an engagement perspective, shopping through marketplace can increase the engagement for users as it enables the user to continue engaging with the Facebook if they are interested in purchasing a particular product they have seen on marketplace. It will attract celebrities and brands to invest more time and money in engaging with their users on Facebook.

From revenue perspective, marketplace enable Facebook generate revenue from the transactional fees of the sales, and make additional revenue from the additional ads that marketplace will be running through Facebook.

From a competitive landscape perspective, entering new marketplace such as India is a good way to stay ahead of the competition. but in India, people know the Facebook for social media platform not as marketplace where people can sell and purchase the things. It will distract the company and user from its main vision.

From Implementation effort perspective, marketplace is like an e-commerce business which has lot of moving parts such as payment, order tracking and marketing. So, entering into this business will require significant investment from Facebook to build their technologies. In India, where marketplace such as amazon, Flipkart etc. is already dominating, it can’t be said it will be profitable business. Facebook should partner with key local companies to forge win-win relationships.

Make a recommendation

By Launching Marketplace in India, Facebook can enhance the user experience, engagement among the users and generate additional revenue from enabling its celebrities and brands to sell on Marketplace. Entering new market such as India, will help in growing userbase and revenue. However, we should minimize the Implementation efforts and address the risks associated with negative shopping experience by partnering with authentic ecommerce Platform providers who are interested in offering the ability to sell on Marketplace to their merchants.