There are lots of ways to sell your used tech online and Facebook Marketplace has steadily become more common in recent years. This mostly has to do with the social network it’s attached to, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most ideal way to sell your goods directly to others. That’s where Swappa comes in.<\/p>\n
Swappa started in 2010 with a single goal in mind: give people a safer way to buy and sell their used tech online. Although a lot has changed since then (we now offer everything from MacBooks<\/a> to cameras<\/a>, video games<\/a>, and home tech<\/a>) our core philosophy has remained the same. Judging by our hundreds of 5-star reviews on TrustPilot<\/a>, we’ve been doing a pretty great job of it too.<\/p>\n We like to call Swappa a “human-powered” marketplace. Why? Well, our staff manually verifies each listing before an item can even go live in our marketplace. This allows us to make sure everything is on the up-and-up, checking a phone’s IMEI to see if a phone’s been reported lost, stolen, or is still being financed through the carrier. The best part is you don’t even need a Facebook account to get started.<\/p>\n Facebook Marketplace on the other hand is more or less like an online yard sale. Open it up and you’ll come across everything from random items to spam listings. A complete lack of marketplace moderation can also result in people misidentifying their devices, making it difficult to tell if an item you’ve found is actually real or counterfeit.<\/p>\n One key difference between Swappa and yard sale sites like Facebook Marketplace is our rule against selling junk devices. We require all devices sold in our marketplace to be in full working condition. This is something we’re proud of and a nonnegotiable for any item sold in our marketplace.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the same can’t<\/em> be said for the Facebook Marketplace which for the most part, allows anyone to sell anything (providing it’s legal). This leaves the buyer to perform the necessary legwork and double-check that the device they’re buying is fully operational, not counterfeit, and hasn’t been reported lost or stolen.<\/p>\n Part of the Swappa experience is being able to receive support — from an actual human being — when you need it. Our staff is available 24\/7, 365 days a year to answer questions and handle any support claims you may have. Don’t believe us? Try dropping a line to our amazing support team and someone will get back to you promptly. Unlike other services, we measure our response times in minutes, not days.<\/p>\n The Facebook Marketplace, on the other hand, is a totally different story. Should you run into any issues or have a question, Facebook says on their website that the “Marketplace doesn’t have a direct contact or support line for administration queries.” Instead, Facebook asks you to rate buyers\/sellers and simply hope for the best.<\/p>\n Swappa is very<\/em> serious about online safety. It’s the reason we started our marketplace, to begin with, and something we’ve been doing since day one. To sell a used phone in our marketplace, sellers are required to provide a verification photo, showing the phone powered on. Our support team then manually performs an IMEI check to ensure the phone hasn’t been blocklisted or is still being financed. For payments, Swappa uses PayPal for protection and our seller ratings to make it easy to see who you’re doing business with.<\/p>\n On Facebook Marketplace, buyers message sellers and coordinate meetups in order to complete a sale. It goes without saying that online interactions are always a safer way to conduct business. Unfortunately, this is discouraged in the Facebook Marketplace in order to prevent fraud. When it comes to Facebook Marketplace, it’s buyer beware.<\/p>\n One of the best parts about selling your old tech on Swappa is the community itself. Swappa users tend to be a little more tech-savvy, upgrading old tech with newer devices as they become available. Our seller ratings also allow buyers to see the reputation of anyone they’re looking to make a deal with. On Swappa you’re much more likely to find serious buyers and sellers than in any other marketplace, a huge benefit for anyone who values their time.<\/p>\n On Facebook Marketplace, things are much different. While it’s possible to find buyers, many of them are causal users who may not always know the actual value of a product they come across. This can result in lowball offers and failed meetups that ultimately end in frustration for sellers. Of course, this isn’t always the case but bad experiences<\/a> and odd listings<\/a> seem to be commonplace on FB Marketplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are lots of ways to sell your used tech online and Facebook Marketplace has steadily become more common in recent years. This mostly has to do with the social network it’s attached to, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most ideal way to sell your goods directly to others. That’s where Swappa comes in. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":5540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-parts\/wpb-single-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[465,466],"products":[],"class_list":["post-5532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-facebook-marketplace","tag-swappa-vs-facebook-marketplace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5532"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27382,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5532\/revisions\/27382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5532"},{"taxonomy":"products","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swappa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/products?post=5532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Marketplace moderation<\/h2>\n
Swappa<\/span><\/h3>\n
Facebook Marketplace<\/span><\/h3>\n
Non-functional or broken devices<\/h2>\n
Swappa<\/span><\/h3>\n
Facebook Marketplace<\/span><\/h3>\n
Customer Support<\/h2>\n
Swappa<\/span><\/h3>\n
Facebook Marketplace<\/span><\/h3>\n
Online Safety<\/h2>\n
Swappa<\/span><\/h3>\n
Facebook Marketplace<\/span><\/h3>\n
Serious buyers & sellers<\/h2>\n
Swappa<\/span><\/h3>\n
Facebook Marketplace<\/span><\/h3>\n