Sean Fowlow confirmed that lately, online marketplaces have become immensely popular. “It’s my belief that most people would rather browse through locally available items for sale online from the comfort of their own homes… than driving around their area looking for flea markets and garage sales,” Fowlow adds that this takes a lot of time and energy.

“There is a large community who still enjoy doing this but I would bet there’s an even larger one growing who are frequent online marketplace shoppers, mainly Facebook Marketplace,” the professional thrift hunter said.

According to Fowlow, we are certainly heading in the direction where everything is being done from our smartphones. “As a seller of used items myself, it’s much easier to list all of my garage sale items on Facebook Marketplace than it is to set out a table in front of my house or in a public market and wait there for hours. This way, people can then come get the specific item they want at an arranged time with ease… not having to rummage through hundreds of items set out on tables.”

Fowlow agreed that there are definitely a lot of weird, funny, and fake items for sale on online marketplaces. According to him, “Most of them are people just having fun… and it is indeed funny to see these items. For instance, I remember seeing someone selling a stainless steel toaster on Facebook Marketplace where the reflection in the toaster was the seller in his underwear taking the photo for the listing. It was done totally on purpose and I highly doubt there was an actual toaster for sale.”

Having said that, Fowlow explained that “even though there are a lot of listings like this, they only make up a very small percentage. The greater deal are legitimate sale items.”

Fowlow himself shops on online marketplaces often, but he mainly uses them to sell. “As I stated before, online marketplaces (like Facebook) make it so easy for me to sell my items and I get tremendous value and time saved because of the mass exposure the platform provides. It’s completely free to list, and they do not charge any fees… like eBay does.”

Another good thing about selling on online marketplaces is that the buyer shows up at your door (or at an arranged location) to purchase the item. Plus, “there are no shipping charges involved. It’s a near-perfect system…”However, Fowlow warns, “there are a lot of questionable people out there… many interested buyers waste my time, failing to show up at the agreed time/place, backing out at the last minute.”

Moreover, Fowlow explained that “oftentimes, people will just simply block your account rather than just say, ‘I’m no longer interested in your item.’ As well, the ‘lowballers’ can be ridiculous. These are the people who will offer you but a fraction of what your item is worth. Factoring all of this into the process of buying/selling on Facebook Marketplace, it’s still tremendously worth it!”

When asked whether online marketplaces will ever drive out open-air markets, Fowlow believes that may be probably if we have another pandemic. “Almost everything is online now. But there is still that old-fashioned crowd who love a good open-air market and will make time and space for them. These markets usually take place in the daytime.”

Meanwhile, “anyone can browse through items on Facebook Marketplace day or night. It’s so easy,” the professional thrift hunter and seller concluded.