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Concept redesign

Facebook Marketplace Redesign

Description
A coordination-first redesign of Facebook Marketplace’s large-item pickup flow, built for the way buying and selling furniture in New York actually plays out. Today, listings stop at a photo, a price, and a short description, and every other detail (dimensions, building access, pickup time, parking, payment) gets sorted through an unstructured Messenger thread. This redesign moves those details into the product itself: structured listings, a shared pickup plan, and a day-of handoff that doesn’t depend on back-and-forth texting.
Tools
Figma
Timeline
2 weeks
Role
Solo Designer
Focus
Interaction
UX
IA
Facebook MarketplaceMarketplace
Context
A New Yorker’s Rite of Passage
Using Facebook Marketplace to furnish your apartment is a New York rite of passage, right alongside moving at least once a year, finding three random strangers on the internet to split rent with and still paying over $2,000 a month, and subletting your room to someone you’ve never met every time you leave town, because paying rent on an empty room for two weeks feels like a crime. It goes on.
That ecosystem feeds Facebook Marketplace like nothing else. You always need a couch, a chair, a dining room table, or need to get rid of one, and you’re not paying movers to haul it across any of the boroughs. Most of my friends here have used Marketplace for at least one move. It’s useful enough to keep coming back to, and frustrating enough that no one really likes it.
Selling bed frames, buying couches, stools, hauling tables up and down walk-ups.
Buying a couch on Facebook Marketplace
Selling a bedframe on Facebook Marketplace
Picking up a dining table
Navigating a walk-up with furniture
What actually happens when you buy furniture on Marketplace
01
You find something you like.
02
You message the seller. App fills in “Is this still available?” Because what else would you say?
03
Wait. Maybe 10 min. Maybe 3 days. Maybe forever.
04
Ask what the listing probably should’ve already answered. Measurements. Floor. Elevator. etc.
05
If you make it far enough, you agree on a time, maybe a price.
06
Day-of series of “are we still down?” texts. Then you tell them your ETA.
07
“Can you come upstairs and help me carry it down?” Nobody mentioned the 3rd-floor walkup.
Personal anecdote
Three transactions in a year
I bought a sofa, a dining table, and tried to buy a side table over the past year. Each one played out the same way. To be fair, I’m not the most punctual texter - but the platform didn’t make it any easier (because nothing is ever my fault) and my solutions are ideally built to remove the need for these back-and-forths altogether.
Messenger thread — sofa purchase
Sofa
The seller got my notifications but couldn’t see the messages. We exchanged phone numbers mid-trip. When I arrived, they asked me to come upstairs and carry it down.
Messenger thread — seller sharing phone number
Dining table
The seller gave me their phone number because Messenger wasn’t reliable enough.
Messenger thread — asking about measurements
Side table
I messaged asking for measurements. Three days, no response. No indication of whether the seller was active or had any intention of replying.
Problem;

How might we help two strangers coordinate a large-item pickup (dimensions, access, timing, transport) without leaving the details to a Messenger thread?

Research;
Marketplace was built for browsing, not coordinating. Once a buyer taps Message, the platform hands them an empty thread and steps back. Everything that matters for a pickup (item condition, dimensions, building access, transport, timing, payment) has to be reconstructed message by message, often across days, with no shared record either side can rely on.
Research on Marketplace and in-person trading platforms points to the same gap. A CHI 2024 study interviewed 42 Marketplace buyers and sellers and found participants “closely monitoring transactional signals” like negotiation patterns and response speed, because the platform gave them no structured ground truth to work from (Beznosov et al., 2024). A UBC thesis reached the same conclusion: users manage the whole transaction through in-person negotiation because the product offers no surface for it.
That gap shows up at four specific moments, and each one shaped a screen in the redesign. Before the conversation, buyers have no way to evaluate whether a pickup is even feasible. In the first message, every thread defaults to “Is this still available?” regardless of intent. Mid-conversation, logistics scatter across a Messenger thread no one can re-read. On pickup day, buyer and seller are coordinating in real time with no shared status.
Scams sit downstream of the same gap. When neither side has structured information to anchor a transaction, that ambiguity is what scammers exploit. A shared, structured record makes the patterns easier to spot. Marketplace has over 1.1 billion monthly active users and furniture is one of its most-shopped categories. I kept running into the coordination problem in New York, but the friction is built into the product. It surfaces anywhere two strangers are trying to move a large item.
Scope
What I focused on
I scoped the redesign to the large-item pickup flow: from “I want this” to “I have it.” Within that, I focused on four moments where the friction is heaviest.
Before the conversation;
Giving buyers the information they need to evaluate a pickup before they send a single message. Dimensions, weight, floor, elevator, condition, building access.
The first message;
Right now every conversation opens with “Is this still available?” regardless of intent. Which is quite irritating for both parties to have to see. The redesign gives buyers distinct entry points: commit at the listed price, make an offer, or ask a specific question.
The coordination;
Logistics currently get buried across dozens of messages. A structured pickup plan pulls date, time, address, and access details into one card both parties can reference.
The day of pickup;
Instead of back-and-forth “I’m 10 min away” texts, the buyer taps one button and the seller sees a live ETA countdown plus access details.
Exploration
Sketches
I worked the flow out on paper before opening Figma. Quicker to iterate on, and easier to see what wasn’t working.
Enhanced listing
Pickup plan: setting it up
Pickup plan: day of
Original listing
The current listing gives you a photo, a title, a price, and whatever description the seller bothered to write. For the $50 accent chair here, that description is just “Comfy. In good condition.” There’s no listed weight, no dimensions, no floor noted, and nothing about whether you’ll need to carry it up three flights of stairs. And there’s only one photo.
Original Facebook Marketplace listing — top of detail view
Original Facebook Marketplace listing — description and seller details
Solution;

The redesign turns a scattered Messenger thread into one path: a structured listing, two ways to commit, and a shared pickup plan that holds through the day of.

The user journey;
It starts on the listing. The redesigned detail page surfaces the things buyers reconstruct message by message today — dimensions, building access, condition tiers, and the seller’s history — so the decision to commit happens with full information instead of a guessing game.
From there, two paths to commitment. Reserve locks the item at asking price; Offer opens a proposal the seller can accept, counter, or decline. Both replace the blank “Is this still available?” thread with a state the seller can act on — and both lead to the same place.
That place is the pickup plan. The two paths converge into one shared card inside the chat: date, address, access, transport, and payment in a single structured record instead of forty messages scattered across days.
And the plan holds. The card stays editable while details settle, locks twelve hours before pickup to force a point of commitment, then goes active on the day of — a live ETA and on-platform arrival in place of both sides narrating the trip through chat. The screens that follow walk through this user journey end to end.
A structured listing
Everything a buyer reconstructs message by message today is now a field on the page. The redesign opens with the item itself: the physical reality of what you’re buying, and where it has been living.
Condition moves from a freeform text box to standardized tiers with room for the seller to disclose specific wear, so “good condition” means the same thing on every listing.
Size & weight;
Dimensions, estimated weight, and a carrying suggestion — how many people it really takes to move it — so buyers know what they’re committing to before they show up.
Where it’s from;
The description carries what kind of home the item comes from: smoke-free or not, pets or not. A couch from a home with two cats is a different item than the same couch from a pet-free apartment.
Building & access
Floor level, elevator, wheelchair accessibility, and parking sit in their own section. These are the details that decide whether a pickup is a ten-minute stop or a two-person ordeal, and today they’re buried in a back-and-forth that happens after you’ve already committed.
Putting them on the listing lets the buyer plan the pickup before reserving rather than after.
Seller & surroundings
The last two fields answer the questions that keep buyers from committing: who am I dealing with, and where am I actually going?
Both pull signals that exist today but stay hidden until you’re deep in a thread, and put them on the page where the decision gets made.
The seller;
Transaction count, ratings, behavioral badges from past buyers, and accepted payment types are surfaced on the listing, so the buyer can read the seller’s history without leaving the page.
Location;
An approximate area and nearby public transport, so the buyer can gauge the trip before reserving. The exact address stays hidden until commitment.
Two paths to commitment
On the current Marketplace, every interaction starts the same way: a blank chat thread with “Is this still available?” pre-filled. It doesn’t matter whether you’re ready to commit, want to negotiate, or just have a question.
The redesign splits this into two committed entry points: Reserve and Offer. Both replace the blank-thread guessing game with a clear signal the seller can act on right away. You can still message without committing — smart inquiry chips cover the questions that dominate first messages — but the bigger move is making commitment its own entry point, sitting right alongside the chat. Either path lands in the same place: the pickup plan.
A personal note;
Luckily I have a shopping problem! I’m an avid Depop user and a huge fan of other second-hand platforms like Vinted and ThredUp, so I came at this as much a buyer as a designer. Making an offer is always the part I’m drawn to — it just feels easier on both sides. The seller can counter or accept in a tap, and as a buyer I can move faster without committing to anything yet. It beats opening with “is this still available?” every time. It’s a personal take, but it’s what pointed me to the feature I think makes the experience more seamless, and even better, it’s one that already works on almost every other second-hand resale platform.
Reserve;
Tap Reserve to commit at the asking price. The chat opens straight into the pickup planner — date, time, address, access, and payment locked in one place, with the seller able to counter the time inline.
Offer;
Tap Offer and a proposal sheet slides up. Send a price and the seller can accept, counter, or decline; an accepted offer routes both parties into the same pickup planner.
Pickup plan, then day-of
Right now, every detail about a pickup gets scattered across a Messenger thread: date, address, buzzer code, payment method. The buyer often ends up scrolling back through dozens of messages to find the address right before the pickup. The pickup plan card puts all of it in one structured place inside the chat: confirmed date and time, full address (revealed only after the buyer commits), building access details, transport method, and agreed payment.
The card has three states. During planning, everything is editable. Twelve hours before pickup, the card locks. Last-minute rescheduling is one of the main drivers of no-shows, so freezing the schedule forces a point of commitment. Once the buyer taps “On My Way,” the card becomes active and the day-of sequence begins.
The day-of stretch is where the current experience breaks down most visibly: “Train is a little delayed,” “eta is 10 min,” “Did you arrive?” Each side narrates their leg of the trip through chat because nothing in the product knows a pickup is in progress. The redesign collapses all of that into one action: the buyer taps “On My Way” and the seller sees a live ETA countdown without the buyer’s exact location.
On the buyer’s side, the address, buzzer code, and floor number sit at the top of the screen, the things you actually need while walking up to an unfamiliar building with one hand on your phone. Tapping “I’m Here” notifies the seller and the whole sequence stays on-platform without requiring phone numbers.
Pickup planned
Pickup planned
Editable until 12h before pickup
Buyer en route
Buyer en route
Live ETA, address & access at top
Seller view
Seller view
ETA countdown, no live location
Tradeoffs
Decisions
What I built, what I left out, and why.
Reserve, not Buy Now;
“Buy Now” implies instant fulfillment, but Marketplace transactions require scheduling, coordination, and physically showing up. “Reserve” better reflects that the buyer is committing to the price and holding the item while the pickup gets worked out.
Payment scope;
Secure payment infrastructure involves fraud detection, escrow, dispute resolution, and regulatory compliance, which is well beyond a two-week sprint. The redesign treats payment method as a coordination detail: buyer and seller agree upfront on cash, Venmo, or Zelle. Integrated payment belongs in a future iteration.
12-hour edit lock;
Allowing last-minute rescheduling gives both parties an easy out. The 12-hour freeze is meant to move the transaction past the planning phase, where most flaking happens, and into something both sides have committed to.
No live location tracking;
An early version shared the buyer’s live location during transit. But sharing your exact position with a stranger you’re meeting for the first time felt like the wrong default. An ETA countdown gives the seller enough information to be ready without requiring that level of visibility.
Reflection
What I took away and what I’d do next
My first instinct was to redesign everything that annoyed me. Research narrowed the opportunity to something more specific, and once the scope was tied to evidence, the decisions became easier to defend on their own terms. The platform treats a pair of AirPods and a sectional sofa the same way. Recognizing the physical reality of what people are buying (weight, size, stairs) shaped most of the decisions here.
I spent more time on the reasoning behind each screen than on the screens themselves. Why this field exists, why the button says “Reserve” instead of “Buy Now,” why edits freeze at 12 hours.
Next, I’d test the seller’s experience. The redesign asks sellers for structured information (dimensions, access, condition), which is more effort than the current “take a photo and post.” The hypothesis is that better listings attract more serious buyers and fewer no-shows, but that tradeoff needs real data. I’d also explore what happens after the pickup: how behavioral tags like “on time” and “item as described” build into trust signals across transactions.
And I’d spend more time with the adoption question. Marketplace works because it’s low-friction to list. Adding structure introduces effort at a moment when the seller just wants to post and move on. The argument for structured coordination is that it reduces the downstream friction (ghosting, no-shows, abandoned conversations) that makes the platform frustrating to use, but that’s a tradeoff worth testing before betting on it.
The thing I keep coming back to: this whole redesign leans on richer listings — measurements, access, condition, location — but all of that detail has to come from the seller. I designed most of this from the buyer’s side. With everything I’m now asking a listing to hold, the real question becomes how to make that easy enough that a seller actually fills it in. That’s its own problem, and probably the next one to solve.
End of case study
Thanks for scrolling.