Bob Lanham On How has Facebook/Meta Has Changed in 7 years
Transcript
Chas : I’m just curious to know, what did Facebook automotive retail look like in its inception or back then when you started compared to now? And was there anything more than small volume incremental, private transactions? Or was it as vast as it is now, like via marketplace and stuff like that?n
n Bob : Yeah, so I’ll answer your first question. What did it look like? We had one guy traveling the country just kind of telling the Facebook story on a different team, there wasn’t an auto retail team at the time. Fast forward seven years. And, you know, we’ve, we’re still slim, we’ve got six of us. But we’ve covered a lot of country, a lot of territory in the last six years and the business has grown substantially since then. You know, you’re referring to marketplace, you know, marketplace, believe it or not, is, gosh, I don’t know the exact date, but really only four years old, maybe three and a half for auto. n
nWhere, where are we allowed partners to bulk upload, you know, dealer’s inventory, you can always upload your personal inventory and still do that. Now. I do want to clarify, or just make clear that people are aware that we did change our policy last year, was the last year, Yes, last year where we deprecated or removed the ability for partners to upload dealer inventory in bulk. dealers can still list their inventory one by one, using our manual tool, but we do not allow the bulk inventory upload anymore. n
nSo to answer your question, what, what what what had happened was the marketplace team, which was just thinking people would put stuff maybe from their home, or just items from their closet, and they quickly realized that people selling their vehicles quickly became the second largest item that was listed, so then, you know, then we built the business out of it.n
n Chas : So that’s really interesting how you guys have, you know, grown from such a small squad and it’s still a relatively small squad, but taking it worldwide, nationwide, in the United States and the dealers are becoming a big part of it. You used to be able to have them upload bulk inventory, now you’ve kind of redacted or retracted that. So a two part question for you. Were the dealers really hesitant at first to list on Facebook? And then now post bulk upload retraction? How are the dealers treating that currently?n
n Bob : Yeah, you know, I know you slipped – worldwide, I mean, we are worldwide so you know, there’s a dealer presence for every OEM worldwide you might have a few different OEMs and in different parts of the world, but the retail business the auto retail business worldwide, which I get to play a role in is is is you know, getting bigger by the day dealers are seeing the power of Facebook and Instagram and and WhatsApp you know, WhatsApp is the largest communication app outside of the US messenger, you know, our largest here in the, in the US as part of our products. n
nWas there hesitation not at all, I mean, you know, dealers, they want their inventory everywhere in anywhere and there was no cost to listing on Facebook now, there might have been a cost to use a partner to list on Facebook, but we did not have a cost to have your vehicle listed on Facebook. So it was a pretty easy proposition for dealers to participate in because it really just became an extension of a partner’s inventory syndication platform, or even lead gen, you know, package that they put in there. So we had a lot of inventory, you know, put up there fairly quickly with the partners that we were having that we were using, which were automotive specific partners.n
n Kelly : I remember part of this was back in, I want to say was 2018 or so. Craigslist, the personals were discontinued, and with it went a shit ton of auto sales. And dealerships were actually counting on sales to come in incrementally from Craigslist, but when they went away, the bottom fell completely out. So is that around the time that Facebook started seeing a lift in dealer listings? Seems like it was to my recollection.n
n Bob : You know, maybe I don’t have that exact time of when Craiglist went down and the marketplace went up. Autos just quickly became one of the most listed items on marketplace when marketplace launched and you know marketplace was and actually might still technically be in beta, it, you know, a beta product where it’s not fully released yet. So it was just one of those things where unfortunately our team last year had to make the decision with the metaverse coming, as well as our shopping products or E commerce products where the team unfortunately needed to be reallocated to two different products. It was nothing more than that.n
nI can tell you, you know, when I had to make that announcement, you know, I received a number of emails and LinkedIn messages and text messages and gosh knows what else, phone calls, personal Facebook messages, however people can can connect with me and you know, of course, they were upset, right? I mean, they were able to just write a check and, and their inventory was listed, they were seeing great results. And, you know, it proved out that it’s a really good product, which is why many found a way to list their inventory manually, even if it was still through a partner who was listing their inventory manually. So, but you know, that’s just one, one product out of many that we have on our platforms.nn
n Bob : Yeah, so I’ll answer your first question. What did it look like? We had one guy traveling the country just kind of telling the Facebook story on a different team, there wasn’t an auto retail team at the time. Fast forward seven years. And, you know, we’ve, we’re still slim, we’ve got six of us. But we’ve covered a lot of country, a lot of territory in the last six years and the business has grown substantially since then. You know, you’re referring to marketplace, you know, marketplace, believe it or not, is, gosh, I don’t know the exact date, but really only four years old, maybe three and a half for auto. n
nWhere, where are we allowed partners to bulk upload, you know, dealer’s inventory, you can always upload your personal inventory and still do that. Now. I do want to clarify, or just make clear that people are aware that we did change our policy last year, was the last year, Yes, last year where we deprecated or removed the ability for partners to upload dealer inventory in bulk. dealers can still list their inventory one by one, using our manual tool, but we do not allow the bulk inventory upload anymore. n
nSo to answer your question, what, what what what had happened was the marketplace team, which was just thinking people would put stuff maybe from their home, or just items from their closet, and they quickly realized that people selling their vehicles quickly became the second largest item that was listed, so then, you know, then we built the business out of it.n
n Chas : So that’s really interesting how you guys have, you know, grown from such a small squad and it’s still a relatively small squad, but taking it worldwide, nationwide, in the United States and the dealers are becoming a big part of it. You used to be able to have them upload bulk inventory, now you’ve kind of redacted or retracted that. So a two part question for you. Were the dealers really hesitant at first to list on Facebook? And then now post bulk upload retraction? How are the dealers treating that currently?n
n Bob : Yeah, you know, I know you slipped – worldwide, I mean, we are worldwide so you know, there’s a dealer presence for every OEM worldwide you might have a few different OEMs and in different parts of the world, but the retail business the auto retail business worldwide, which I get to play a role in is is is you know, getting bigger by the day dealers are seeing the power of Facebook and Instagram and and WhatsApp you know, WhatsApp is the largest communication app outside of the US messenger, you know, our largest here in the, in the US as part of our products. n
nWas there hesitation not at all, I mean, you know, dealers, they want their inventory everywhere in anywhere and there was no cost to listing on Facebook now, there might have been a cost to use a partner to list on Facebook, but we did not have a cost to have your vehicle listed on Facebook. So it was a pretty easy proposition for dealers to participate in because it really just became an extension of a partner’s inventory syndication platform, or even lead gen, you know, package that they put in there. So we had a lot of inventory, you know, put up there fairly quickly with the partners that we were having that we were using, which were automotive specific partners.n
n Kelly : I remember part of this was back in, I want to say was 2018 or so. Craigslist, the personals were discontinued, and with it went a shit ton of auto sales. And dealerships were actually counting on sales to come in incrementally from Craigslist, but when they went away, the bottom fell completely out. So is that around the time that Facebook started seeing a lift in dealer listings? Seems like it was to my recollection.n
n Bob : You know, maybe I don’t have that exact time of when Craiglist went down and the marketplace went up. Autos just quickly became one of the most listed items on marketplace when marketplace launched and you know marketplace was and actually might still technically be in beta, it, you know, a beta product where it’s not fully released yet. So it was just one of those things where unfortunately our team last year had to make the decision with the metaverse coming, as well as our shopping products or E commerce products where the team unfortunately needed to be reallocated to two different products. It was nothing more than that.n
nI can tell you, you know, when I had to make that announcement, you know, I received a number of emails and LinkedIn messages and text messages and gosh knows what else, phone calls, personal Facebook messages, however people can can connect with me and you know, of course, they were upset, right? I mean, they were able to just write a check and, and their inventory was listed, they were seeing great results. And, you know, it proved out that it’s a really good product, which is why many found a way to list their inventory manually, even if it was still through a partner who was listing their inventory manually. So, but you know, that’s just one, one product out of many that we have on our platforms.nn