Facebook Inc. announced today that it is expanding its person-to-person e-commerce platform, Marketplace, to 17 new countries across Europe.

Launched last October, Marketplace was Facebook’s official answer to the millions of unofficial sales being made from specialized Facebook groups. Mary Ku, director of product management at Facebook, said at the time that Marketplace was a place to “find a new home for the things you’re ready part with.” Marketplace was available only in a handful of countries at first, including the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, but the platform has since expanded into Mexico and Chile as well.

Marketplace seems to be growing quickly, and according to Facebook, Marketplace users in the U.S. posted more than 18 million new items for sale in the month of May alone. The company said the number of sales happening on the platform continues to grow as well.

Deborah Liu, vice president of Marketplace, said in a blog post Monday that Facebook’s platform allows users to buy items from regular people with less worry that they are being scammed. “Whether you’re a new parent looking for baby clothes or a collector looking for a rare find,” Liu said, “you can feel good about buying and selling on Marketplace because it’s easy to view the public profiles of buyers and sellers, your mutual friends, and how long they’ve been on Facebook.”

Nonetheless, the platform has run into a few problems on its road to growth. Shortly after launch, a number of illegal goods popped up on Marketplace, including live animals, drugs, adult services and others. Facebook said that a “technical issue” allowed hundreds of illegal listings to be posted to Marketplace, but the company quickly removed all illicit goods and services.

The new countries to which Marketplace is expanding are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Photo: Facebook