Dive Brief:

• Seattle-based local online marketplace OfferUp is going national, according to a blog post from CEO and co-founder Nick Huzar published on Tuesday.

• The move is being made possible with a shipping option through the U.S. Postal Service and was undertaken because so many of OfferUp's sellers wanted the ability to sell to buyers beyond their local communities, Huzar said. 

• The marketplace in September announced it had secured $119 million in Series C-1 financing led by private equity firm Warburg Pincus, joined by new investors GGV Capital and Altimeter Capital. That round brought its total fundraising to more than $210 million, according to a press release. 

Dive Insight:

This is a strong play by OfferUp, and it challenges not just eBay, which charges sellers more and also ships nationally, but also Craigslist and Facebook, which both run marketplaces featuring locally based sellers across the country. OfferUp calls itself the largest mobile marketplace (through iOS and Android apps) for local buyers and sellers in the country.

The startup's app also features a payments wallet, which has helped earned its reputation as a "Craigslist killer" because the older giant's has maintained its locally based, cash-based enterprise.

OfferUp came out of stealth in 2015, and, though it doesn't provide numbers, said in September that it has seen "explosive growth over the last year." The company was featured in Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report last year for its user engagement, which the company says is equal to SnapChat's. Its app last year was a top four download in both the Apple App Store and Google Play lifestyle and shopping categories, according to the September release.

"We've always approached the market with a different perspective  —  one that focused on the simplicity, dynamics and trust of the market in order to build a sustainable business that could scale. Frictionless," Huzar said. "Today we take that mission nationwide, made possible with the ability to ship."

The competition in mobile marketplaces is heating up amid surges in both mobile shopping and sales of second-hand goods. Mobile commerce retail sales are expected to account for about 28% of all e-commerce retail sales this year and about 45% of e-commerce sales by 2021, according to a January Business Insider Intelligence report. 

Meanwhile, the resale retail market is on pace to reach $41 billion by 2022, with 49% of sales in apparel, according to a report last month from second-hand apparel website ThredUp.