Why can’t I stop using Facebook Marketplace?

Is it time to cool down the Jets?
photo: Royal Bank of New Zealand

First Person – When I picked up my new TV stand, I had no idea that this was the beginning of a problem.

The Facebook Marketplace ad touts it as a “classic 1970s.” I braved school traffic to get it, and it’s gorgeous if I do say so myself.

Next came the solid wood extension table and soon after that the baby gate. I don’t have kids but my 3 year old nephew was coming to visit for the day so why not spend $20 on it. It was only a 15 minute detour to get it anyway. The wooden headboard would be nice too so I had to get one. I was pretty confident I could fit it in the trunk of my hatchback (which I can’t).

At this point, the app shows me items I might want, and you know what? I do want roller skates, the seller is near me, and the third vacuum cleaner might be handy and cheap.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Facebook Marketplace, it originally launched as part of Facebook in 2007 but never really took off. It was relaunched in 2016 with a better positioning on the app and it exploded in popularity. Today, it’s full of people selling second-hand goods, And the occasional scam.Facebook claims to have 1 billion monthly active users.

It was during that week that I bought three items from the Marketplace in two days (outdoor storage bins, the infamous third vacuum cleaner, a postmodern Talking Heads poster) that I noticed a pattern emerging. Browse Facebook Marketplace to kill time, find an item for under $50, and buy it. I wasn’t trying to destitute myself, but I was wandering around Oakland and my house was already full.

Curious as to why, I decided to ask an expert. Rachel Stansfield, who has a master’s degree in social anthropology and a research focus on thrifting, said people she spoke to saw secondhand shopping as a form of rebellion.

“They see repurposing as better than buying new, and from that perspective, they also see it as a rejection of capitalism in some political sense.

“There’s also some eclecticism, where people want to create their own style. They’re tired of shopping malls offering the same thing for everyone… so it’s more of a rejection of the mainstream.”

Beyond that, the urge to be frugal may be a little stronger.

“Several people have written a lot about the scarcity brain, and how as hunter-gatherers we have ancient amygdalae in our brains, we were actually hard-wired for scarcity, but we now live in an age of abundance.

“I don’t know if it’s just an excuse for consumerism or if there’s something else going on, but there’s definitely some reason.”

Maybe my absentminded browsing on a weekday afternoon was satisfying a primal instinct to find a deal?

Shirley McCumbe, general manager of Bay Financial Mentors, said Facebook Marketplace plays another psychological trick.

“It’s about timing, so you’ve got to buy it because someone else might bid on it and buy it, and then you become so focused on everything that comes along, like, ‘Oh, this looks really good. We better bid on it, or we better buy it because it might disappear’.

“The upcoming events pushed us to make a quick decision because we didn’t want to miss anything, and it didn’t give us time to think, ‘Well, we already have one, do we need two?'”

It all started to make sense. The aforementioned Talking Heads poster is a great example. I saw it and realized it would be a nice decorative item, it wouldn’t be one of the many mass-produced prints in the mall, and I thought the price was a definite bargain. On top of that, everyone around me said they wanted it, and I was worried I was missing out.

It was hanging on the wall of my house that same day, but I purchased it during a non-payroll week, initially planning to put the decoration aside for a while to think about what would work best in the space.

So maybe it’s time to calm down, but how do I do that? McCollum has some advice.

“It doesn’t matter what the tool is, it doesn’t matter what you call it, what matters is making every dollar you make count.

“That way you can create a spending plan for yourself and identify some money in that plan that will either go toward entertainment or renovations to the house or whatever else is needed and then stick to that money.

“So you know you have X amount of spending each week, that might go into a separate account for improvements around the house, and you know if you buy three vacuum cleaners, that’s a problem because you might not be able to afford a dining table.”

It’s time for some financial planning and a new hobby. I do have a pair of roller skates that I never planned on buying, but could come in handy.