You meant it kindly. It reads like a script.
"I can send someone to collect on my behalf." "If you can't come in person I can arrange shipping if you cover it." Both are things a decent seller writes. Both are also the opening lines of a scam buyers have been warned about.
The advert is not being judged on its writing.
Marketplace is a local sale between two strangers who are going to stand in a car park together. Everything a buyer reads is being read for one thing first: is this person real, and is this going to be awkward. Consumer-safety guidance in the UK has spent years teaching people to recognise a handful of phrases — a third party collecting, an offer to ship for extra, a push away from cash on collection — and buyers now apply that filter to every listing, including yours.
So the most valuable thing a review can do here is not sharpen your description. It is to point at two sentences you wrote in good faith and explain why they are costing you replies, then replace them with the arrangement you actually meant: collection only, from a named area, at a time that suits.
The second thing is the price. "Make an offer" with no number is the most common way a Marketplace listing dies quietly. It puts the work on the buyer, it invites a lowball, and it slows the first reply — and on a platform where the first reply is most of the transaction, slow is fatal. A firm number with "collection only, cash on collection" attached does more than any adjective.
Meta publishes no Marketplace character limit and no ranking algorithm, so anything you are told about what performs arrives marked as seller experience rather than as a platform rule.
A real listing, before and after.
From the Facebook Marketplace rubric behind the job. The seller was being accommodating.
Title Sofa for sale
Description Good condition sofa, message me. Cash only, will consider my assistant collecting on my behalf if you can't come in person, or I can arrange shipping if you pay extra.
Photos one dark photo
Price no price listed, "make an offer"
Title 3-Seater Grey Fabric Sofa — [ADD FACT: brand/retailer if known]
Description Grey fabric 3-seater sofa, [ADD FACT: age/how long owned]. [ADD FACT: honest condition — any marks, wear, pet/smoke-free home if true]. Dimensions: [ADD FACT: length x depth x height]. Selling as [ADD FACT: reason — moving house, replacing]. Collection only from [ADD FACT: general area, e.g. town/postcode district] — happy to arrange a convenient time.
Photos [ADD FACT: replace with 4-6 photos in daylight, all angles, any wear shown]
Price £[ADD FACT], collection only, cash on collection
Both flagged sentences are gone outright, and the report says why in plain terms rather than deleting them silently. That distinction matters: a seller who does not know why will write them again next week.
"Selling as [reason]" is the other addition worth noticing. Nobody asks for it and every buyer wants it — a sofa being sold because the room is too small reads completely differently from a sofa with no explanation, and it costs one clause.
Three steps.
- Paste the listing. Title, description and what you have put for the price, including "make an offer" if that is what is there. Mention the category you filed it under — a sofa under Electronics is invisible to the people browsing for a sofa.
- Top up once. This job uses never more than 40p and spends only what the finished report costs, so the balance stays with you. If the tone comes back wrong for a local sale, a change is another go at the job and costs pence too.
- You get a rewritten advert. Score, ranked problems, a title, a description, a stated collection arrangement, a photo brief, and the checks to do before it goes live.
A generation that fails costs nothing.
Suits you, or does not.
Worth it if
- Your listing has been up for a fortnight with views and no messages.
- You have written "make an offer" and are getting offers of a third of the price.
- You are selling something bulky and have no idea how much to say about collection.
- You have put your phone number or address in the description and are not sure you should have.
- You keep getting messages that feel like scams and want to know if you invited them.
Not worth it if
- You do want to offer shipping. It will not write that arrangement for you on a local sale — it treats it as a risk to the seller, and if you disagree, this is the wrong tool.
- You want condition talked up. "Like new" on a visibly used item generates more disputes here than anywhere with a proper condition dropdown.
- You are selling something Marketplace prohibits. The report will say so instead of improving the wording.
- Your photos are the whole problem. A dark photo cannot be written around.
What Marketplace sellers ask before a stranger turns up.
Is it safe to have somebody come to my house?
That is a decision the listing can make easier rather than one it makes for you. What it does is take your address and phone number out of the listing text, because the listing is public and the arrangement does not have to be — you agree collection in the chat, with whoever is actually coming. Daylight, somebody else in the house, and a public place for anything you can carry. The listing says that collection is arranged, not where you live.
A buyer wants to send a courier and pay extra for shipping. Is that a scam?
It is one of the oldest scripts on the platform and it is treated as one: the overpayment, the assistant or courier who will collect, the move to email or a payment app, the pressure to accept before anybody has seen the item. The report flags phrasing in your own listing that invites it — will consider posting, will accept bank transfer — because the wording in the advert selects for that buyer. Cash on collection, stated plainly, ends most of it.
Make me an offer. Is that not the point of Marketplace?
Haggling is the culture; no price is not. A listing with no anchor attracts the lowest offer anyone thinks they can get away with, and you spend the week negotiating up from there. State a firm figure and say whether there is movement in it. The other half is that vague pricing reads as an uncertain seller, and an uncertain seller attracts the buyer who intends to renegotiate on the doorstep after you have both spent an afternoon on it.
What is actually banned on Marketplace?
Meta's commerce policies rule out alcohol, weapons and ammunition, recalled goods, counterfeit items, adult content, digital subscriptions and financial instruments, among others. Those are removals rather than warnings, and the recalled-goods one catches people selling secondhand in perfectly good faith. It flags a listing that appears to fall in a prohibited category. It will not adjudicate a borderline one, because the platform's own review is what decides that.
Should I say collection only?
Say something, because the most common silence on this platform is about how the thing physically reaches the buyer, and it is the question every message asks. Collection only, delivery within a few miles, or will post — any of them beats nothing. If it is a sofa, say which floor it is on and whether there is a lift, because that is otherwise the conversation you have three times with three different people who then do not come.
How quickly do I have to reply?
Quickly, in a way that is unusual among selling platforms: the buyer is browsing locally, generally wants it now, and has messaged several sellers at once. Slow replies are widely reported as the main way a Marketplace sale is lost, though Meta publishes no figure for it. What the listing can do is answer the questions that would otherwise arrive as messages — dimensions, condition, whether it comes apart, how it is collected, the price. Fewer messages, faster answers, same sale.
Have the advert checked.
Paste it as it stands. The report opens with anything that reads as a risk to a buyer, because that is what is keeping the messages away.
Top up once. No subscription. About 28p — never more than 40p.