Facebook the new eBay

Recently I discovered few friend pages on Facebook that are dedicated to selling fashion apparel. It's not a new concept, but I think it works well. Instead of selling products to people you don't know on eBay, sell them to people you know on Facebook.

Those friend pages that I have seen so far are created by small business owners in Hong Kong, selling imported Korean and Japanese fashion apparel. They post photos of clothes that they sell on Facebook. If friends are interested to buy, they send Facebook messages to inquire about price, size and delivery location. If the sellers operate a physical store front, they inform potential buyers about the store location and invite them to the store for fitting and more shopping.

I think selling products on Facebook gives the seller few advantages:

1. Trust is built-in to the social network. Your friends probably feel very comfortable buying products from you because they know you. If the product is bad, they know whom to call.
2. Facebook is an excellent platform for word of mouth marketing -- Alice tells Bob, and Bob tells Charlie and David, etc.
3. Receive instant customer feedback through wall posts. For example, if friends tell you that they like the same dress but in color red, you know immediate to stock up red dresses next time when you go shopping for inventory. Reliable customer feedback reduces a lot of guess works for you.

If selling products on Facebook starts to become a trend, I wonder what strategies will Facebook implement in order to profit from this market? An obvious model is to create a Facebook online store front for selling goods and profit from sells transactions.