Selling for a Cause

Facebook recently revamped and relaunched its Marketplace as a "social classifieds" application, thanks to help from Oodle, an online classifieds startup founded by former eBay and Excite executives.

Facebook members can post items for sale on their profiles, where their friends can comment on them, share them with their friends and click "like" to voice their approval — same as they can for other posted items. In order to post items for sale, members must answer the question "Why are you selling it?"

Facebook stresses that Marketplace is designed mainly to be used as a local classified service, where seller and buyer meet in person to exchange the item and money, as it doesn't offer an online payment safeguarding system like PayPal.

Individuals also can give items away, ask for needed items, and sell items for a cause and donate the proceeds to charity. To "Sell for a Cause," members can name their favorite charity (as long as it's a registered 501(c)3 organization) as the beneficiary of all or part of the sale or select from a list of Facebook's featured nonprofits. After user sell their items and meet with buyers to collect payment, they revisit their listing pages on Marketplace and are redirected to a secure page where they can make a donation to their charitable beneficiary using their credit card. Network for Good, which processes all donations made via Marketplace, will send donors e-mail receipts, which can be used to deduct the donation from their taxes.

To learn more about the program, visit http://apps.facebook.com/marketplace.