Ina Steiner EcommerceBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on ecommerce.
by Ina Steiner, Editor of EcommerceBytes.com
Thu Feb 14 2019 12:45:25

A Top eBay Exec Departs as Company Reorganizes

By: Ina Steiner

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The head of eBay Marketplaces in the US, Scott Cutler, is leaving as eBay undergoes a major restructuring of its organization. Cutler most recently headed Marketplaces for the Americas and previously headed StubHub. eBay plans on replacing him. 

The reorganization seems to be a defensive move in light of the pressure being applied by activist investor Elliott Management, which has criticized eBay's leadership and performance.

According to eBay's announcement today:

"eBay is bringing the company's geographic regions together under one global leadership team that will be led by Jay Lee, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Markets. The markets included in the new structure will be the Americas, APAC, UK, Central and Southern Europe, as well as Cross-Border Trade."

Lee will be based at eBay headquarters in San Jose, California.

In its announcement, eBay didn't say if other executives would see the chopping block and what the news meant for country managers, such as Rob Hattrell Vice President of eBay UK. However, EcommerceBytes learned that Hattrell still heads UK.

Jooman Park, Senior Vice President of APAC, no longer appears on eBay's leadership chart, but Park will remain in that position. 

It is clear from the announcement that eBay is keeping its Chief Technology Officer Steve Fisher.

TechCrunch reported today that it understood eBay would be laying off "a percentage of its global workforce" - possibly 400 workers.

However, an eBay spokesperson said, "As a result of this Marketplace evolution, along with other actions to deliver on our goals, teams across the company are adapting to ensure maximum focus on eBay's global priorities. We are both adding and removing positions as appropriate."

We asked if there would be any changes impacting eBay sellers, such as a reduction in customer service support or other areas - the changes announced today should not have any negative impact to customers.

In its announcement, eBay wrote, "To ensure each market remains responsive to the needs of their customers, local teams will focus on inventory and merchandising, advertising, marketing, seller and brand acquisition, buyer acquisition and retention, shipping and fulfillment, and payments activation."

eBay cited the following key benefits of the changes:

- Strategic alignment of global priorities (buyer growth, conversion, payments, advertising) across the company's largest markets;

- Faster decision making and execution;

- Streamlined resource allocation with a greater impact on global priorities; 

- Improved and simplified collaboration with the Core Product and Technology (CPT) organization, led by CTO Steve Fisher.

You can read eBay's rather cryptic announcement on this page.

Update 2/15/19: Silicon Valley Business Journal reports eBay will be laying off 135 workers in California alone, citing state filings. In one location, eBay is laying off 15 director-level employees, more than 40 managers, and several software engineers, architects, data scientists and legal counsels, according to the publication.

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Perminate Link for A Top eBay Exec Departs as Company Reorganizes   A Top eBay Exec Departs as Company Reorganizes

by: donald This user has validated their user name.

Mon Feb 18 19:41:15 2019



The 2019 new and improved ebay. Now with 400 less employees.  However they are keeping the old and no good Chief Technology Officer.

Some people never learn.

 

Perminate Link for A Top eBay Exec Departs as Company Reorganizes   A Top eBay Exec Departs as Company Reorganizes

by: Moonwishes This user has validated their user name.

Mon Feb 18 22:44:20 2019

I generally avoid anything to do with eBay if at all possible, but in the last couple of weeks, I was looking for a few things and found them on eBay and bought them. Never mind that half the time the descriptions were on a second page and the first page was packed solid with ads to things that the eBay computer seemed to think I would also be interested in - Wrestling magazines - I think not. My biggest surprise besides every single sale turning out right! Total shock there, was when as a seller knowing how important feedback is, I tried to leave it and tried to leave it and finally gave up. If they can't even get that right what hope do they have? If their search can tell the difference between someone searching for and buying card making magazines and wrestling and Sports Illustrated and Topps Sportscards, what hope is there? It wouldn't have been so bad if I had only visited one time, but I had visited and did the same search and looked at the same things each time and when I made my last purchase, I yeat again got shown some other things that eBay thought I would be interested in. I decent search should have been showing me everything possible in line with what I was searching for. In the years I sold there and the few times since I bought there, I have never once searched for any sports item, what makes the search engine think I have changed. Oops, I haven't changed, the search did and no wonder people are having trouble selling!

If a venue that has been around as long as eBay can't do those basic things correctly, what is the point? The layoffs won't help, the current family issue which the kicked to the curb guy is probably having, etc. None of that is going to help. Hire people that really know what they are doing. When hospitals and insurance companies, etc. were gearing up for all the changes in healthcare that Hillary promised when Bill was in office. Who at my hospital got the layoffs first? The aides, nurses, and therapists. All those having direct patient care and were the most motivated in helping patients be rehabbed and gotten better. Less direct staff meant less help to patients, and at the same time they would bring in sicker and sicker patients who weren't even ready for rehab. So the worse it got. Yet rarely was a bigwig canned. I mean you need a CFO don't you more than 10 nurses? Some things can't be quantified with money. eBay does this but as long as they get to keep cashing in their stock options (before they are worthless) the bigwigs will do what they want to so that they keep THEIR jobs because according to them they are so important. The lesser peons and sellers who most likely don't have a penny in eBay stock can be let go with no remorse as they aren't that important in DW & the BOD eyes.

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