More than 250 million sellers use Facebook Marketplace to sell various products around the world. Many of them want to conduct their business privately, and the platform gives them the opportunity to do so.
In this article, we will tell you how the main trading platform in the Meta ecosystem works and what privacy settings apply to the products placed here. You will also learn how you can hide Facebook Marketplace listings from friends and what other features are available in this direction.
Selling on Facebook Marketplace Privately
New sellers on Facebook Marketplace often wonder the answer to the question, how to post ads on Facebook Marketplace without friends seeing? The thing is that by default all listings published by users are displayed in the news feeds of their friends on FB.
This situation can cause certain inconveniences both to sellers and to their friends. This is especially true for those who regularly post and update ads in the marketplace catalog. Frequently receiving notifications about new product posts in their feed, users may perceive them as intrusive advertising and hide all updates from sellers or even remove them from friends.
Otherwise, sellers themselves do not want their friends to see news about their sale of certain goods in the feed. Fortunately, this problem can be solved quickly and easily—just change the visibility mode of your ads in the Facebook Marketplace settings.
Below we will provide step-by-step instructions on how to perform this action, as well as give some recommendations on maintaining confidentiality when trading on the FB marketplace.
How Facebook Marketplace Works and What Friends Can See
Facebook Marketplace is the official Meta trading platform, allowing users of the popular social network to buy and sell various goods to each other. Both registered entrepreneurs and individuals can trade on it.
After a product listing is placed on Marketplace, it is automatically added to the general catalog of the site. It can then be found by other FB users through local search, as well as by unregistered people in the social network through search engines.
Buyers and sellers can follow each other on Marketplace, similar to how it works on Facebook itself. Following someone will give you instant notifications about their new listings. You can turn this option off and on again in your account settings.
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The published ad will be visible to users both on and off the social network by default. In addition, its preview with the title and image will automatically appear in the news feeds of the seller's friends on FB and Messenger.
Unlike regular Facebook posts, product listings appear not only in your activity feed but also in the marketplace catalog, in the category the seller specified when they posted them.
Taking advantage of Facebook Marketplace privacy settings, you can hide any listing you've posted from your FB/Messenger friends. This is available for both new listings before they're published and for previously posted items by editing their listings.
Step-by-Step Guide: Hiding Marketplace Ads from Friends
In this section of the article, you will receive step-by-step instructions that will help you manage Facebook Marketplace hidden listings.
How to hide a new listing:
- Log in to your Facebook account and go to the marketplace by clicking on the corresponding icon in the top menu.
- Once you've navigated to the main marketplace dashboard, create a new listing. Go to the Item for sale section.
- Enter the name and other information about the product you are offering.
- Check the box next to Hide from friends to prevent it from being posted to your FB and Messenger friends' news feeds. (Note: The listing will remain visible to everyone outside of Facebook and Messenger.)
Source: Facebook (Meta), illustrative screenshot.
How to hide an existing listing:
- Log in to your Facebook account and go to the marketplace by clicking on the corresponding icon in the top menu.
- From the main Marketplace dashboard, navigate to the Selling section, then to the Your Listings subsection.
- Click on the three dots icon next to the listing name to open its settings.
- Click Edit Listing, then check the box next to Hide from friends to hide it from your FB and Messenger friends' news feeds.
Additional Privacy Settings to Consider
We will give you some recommendations that will allow you to sell on Facebook Marketplace privately:
- When publishing any post on their Facebook page, the author can choose its visibility mode: Public (visible to everyone, including those not registered on FB), Friends (visible only to friends and those tagged in the post), Only Me (visible only to the author), or Custom (you can show or hide the post from certain people).
- It is also possible to specify the visibility mode for all future posts by default: Public, Friends, Friends except, Specific friends, Only me, or Custom.
- Additionally, individual privacy settings allow you to choose who can see your profile information and updates.
- Hiding listings on the marketplace is possible for most product categories, with the exception of real estate and vehicles. The platform also does not allow hiding listings created in groups.
- If you choose to hide a listing from your friends, they can still find it through FB or Marketplace search or through a third-party search engine.
Bottom Line
When selling various items on Facebook Marketplace, users often want to do so privately for one reason or another. Fortunately, the platform gives them the option to do so by allowing them to hide any listing (new or existing) from their Facebook and Messenger friends.
By following the instructions in this article, you can easily and quickly manage the visibility of each listing you publish on the marketplace. Additional settings will help you set the desired privacy mode for your posts or profile on FB. But keep in mind that hidden ads continue to be visible to anyone off of Facebook and Messenger.
FAQ
How can I hide my Facebook Marketplace listings from my friends?
Can I hide previously posted listings from my friends?
Are there any types of Facebook Marketplace listings that cannot be hidden from friends?
Will hiding listings from friends make them invisible to everyone else?
Does hiding Marketplace listings affect visibility in Facebook Groups or external search engines?
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