Shift Technologies has officially expanded and brought its services to consumers in the nation’s capital. The peer-to-peer online car marketplace announced Wednesday morning that its first East Coast hub has opened in Washington, D.C.

The company said this move marks the beginning of its cross-country growth plans. It is also the first time greater D.C. residents will be able to utilize Shift’s services, and follows an announcement last month that Shift would be investing $20 million in an East Coast workforce based out of Northern Virginia.

Essentially, the D.C. hub will bring area consumers Shift’s services and serve as the company’s East Coast operational center.  

“We’ve been eyeing D.C. as our first East Coast expansion city for some time now,” Shift co-founder and chief executive officer George Arison said in a news release. “Aside from being the geographic epicenter of the East Coast, D.C. is a city of commuters who rely heavily on their cars for navigating through daily life.

“Our unique model has created significant value and efficiencies for both buyers and sellers throughout California, which we know will change the game for drivers in D.C. and beyond,” he added.

Shift aims to operate in 20 cities by the end of the year. Last month, Auto Remarketing spoke with Toby Russell, the business and product lead at Shift, who will be leading the Northern Virginia operation.

He explained how the engineering workforce investment the company is making there fits into the overall expansion plans.

Essentially, Shift has two applications. There's the consumer-facing app, which a buyer or seller would use. Second is the app for Shift's “car enthusiasts,” who check out the vehicles, inspect them, bring them to the warehouse and take care of washing, detailing and posting online.

“Just as Uber has their passenger and driver app, we have our … end-consumer and our car enthusiast or internal apps,” Russell said. “San Francisco will be building and focusing on the consumer-facing, the equivalent of the passenger app. And D.C. is going to be focusing on our internal apps, that kind of core engine that will help us to deliver the great service and the experience that we create.

“The thing is, you can get a certain amount on the way, doing duct tape and bailing wire, working and having manual processes … but the, really, re-invention, the way we're scaling and the way we intend to go nationwide is really building out the technology with those internal apps that are going to allow us to scale out Shift,” he said. “That's the technology we're going to build in Virginia.”