Management changes at eBay

In addition to the Philip Justus news (once again - Bill Cobb isn't going anywhere).  Philip is going to be running "core auctions" (which is US eBay, no express, no stores, no motors) - he will be eating and sleeping auctions.  Note to Philip - we need more of the same changes around fraud and bringing life back to the core site that have already begun.  Do more, faster!

Also, we've learned that eBay has snagged the CMO of BestBuy, Michael Linton (pictured at left) to run the non-core parts of eBay: Motors, Stores, eXpress and ProStores. 

That's pretty exciting to have some real-world retail experience at eBay.  Frequently as we've brought retailers to the eBay platform at ChannelAdvisor, we've seen a gap between how the retailer operates/thinks and how eBay thinks.  We bridge that gap, but having someone on the eBay side that "thinks like a retailer" is going to be very helpful indeed!  Ironically one of the retailers that had a good run on eBay was BestBuy - so Mike's familiar with what's going on.

There are also some changes on the product development and other areas that seem geared towards making things somewhat more efficient/streamlined.

Bottom line:  Net positives here, no sea changes like we're seeing over at Yahoo! where the CFO is now running the search engine/advertising unit.  Yikes!

Comments

[mark pearson]

It's hard to contact management at E-bay so i'm writing anyone who seems connected, i hope you people are. Your security people aren't doing thier job! What good is that to your valued customers? Not good for me as i will not use your service again. Please follow up by reviewing my history of complaints and see how lame E-bay security is. Check a seller Popcycle Records, see that they are still ripping off people even after i sited them. It's obvious E-bay has no power to keep these thieves off your service. This Popcycle matter is a no-brainer, just look at their history, but so far i haven't seen any resemblance of brain work at E-bay. My frustration with E-bays unperformance has me very upset, it's time i let as many people know what a sham E-bay is running, ah...not a good strategy!

[Randy Smythe]

So, what is Bill Cobb going to be doing? According to eBay’s website: As president of eBay North America, Bill Cobb oversees the marketing, strategic planning, and business development for all of eBay's North American businesses. This includes responsibility for the strategy and marketing behind the eBay.com, eBay Canada, and eBay Motors business units. If Philip Justus is taking over eBay.com and Michael Linton is taking over eBay Canada, Motors, Stores, Express and ProStores what is left for Billy Boy? I can't help think that the other shoe will drop here soon. Is Meg leaving? Has their been a palace coup? Is Bill getting bumped upstairs or out the door? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Fruit Helmet Cat]

Scot, this must be a big reorg don't you think? Bill's gotta be going somewhere, he's either going to be the pizza delivery boy for lunch orders or he'll get "promoted" with a nice big title and disappear in the background. In a way I think adding two guys to handle the businesss segments might fracture the organization, but as long as they have a mechanism to overlap it may be a very good thing for us! Ya gotta hope, right? Will Michael understand small business needs or will Michael turn ebay immediate purchases into a supermall of new stuff? That's the only big question I have. Ebay has big superstores but then they also have small businesses like me and we have totally different needs.

I'm so excited, maybe now we won't have to sit through another Town Hall with Bill Cobb hoping he'll win against me at Ebaymatchups instead of fixing the problems he's paid to fix! You'll never win against me Bill, ask Meg!

[dimes]

I wish those guys a lot of luck. They're going to need it.