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SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson Leaving End Of April

eBay revealed in their most recent 8-K filling today that SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson will be leaving at the end of April.

 

https://investors.ebayinc.com/financial-information/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?Fil...

 

No replacement has been announced yet.

 

I wonder how this is going to affect all the new selling tools & experiences they have planned for the rest of the year? 🤔

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SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson Leaving End Of April

Thanks for the information...............interesting.......wonder who will take charge now.......Mohan (sp?) used to be the "face" before Harry.....do you know if he's still around? 

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SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson Leaving End Of April

@dhbookds  - Mohan Patt is still around and that was my first thought too, but he has an awful lot on his plate already. 

 

 

My other thought was possibly Mark Weinberg. As VP of Core Product Engineering he definitely has the tech side covered and in the Spring Seller Check In, Andrea introduced him as taking over leadership of Seller Experience too.  At the time, I thought that may have meant simply stepping in to fill Harry Temkin's old role but maybe they're gearing up for him to step up a level and take Pete's position?

 

Of course they could go with an outsider too, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

It will be interesting to see what a changing of the guard holds in store for some of the overdue seller tools and features as well as some of the ones that were just recently announced.  I hope it will reinvigorate the tech lead reimagination and maybe a fresh perspective will bring some new and exciting innovations to the platform. 🤞

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SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson Leaving End Of April

I wish Pete well wherever he ends up, and I too am hopeful that announced changes will still be forthcoming, and maybe some new innovations as well.  One certainty : this is no longer Wenig's site, and the new ebay has an entirely different strategy. 

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SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson Leaving End Of April


@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

I wish Pete well wherever he ends up, and I too am hopeful that announced changes will still be forthcoming, and maybe some new innovations as well.  One certainty : this is no longer Wenig's site, and the new ebay has an entirely different strategy. 


Agreed, but it shares one big issue Wenig's direction had, which is overreliance on ad's. As this has continued to cause eBay's prices to be less competitive with the competition. Good for short term gains, but worse for long term marketplace performance. This of course means all the $$$ they're investing in to marketing nowadays will give them short term gains, rather than long term growth, as well. As in the way eBay's directed, they're the only "winner" here with their design is them - they make the extra profit margin on ads, but seller margins are smaller, and prices are higher for customers.

 

If they really want sustained marketplace growth - with the core of eBay being their marketplace for a community of sellers - they can't copy advertisement systems that were original designed by Amazon. As Amazon used those ads alongside their fulfillment system, which allows lower costs to customers since sellers get hugely reduced rates for shipping to Amazon, and Amazon covers shipping to the customer. EBay's design being "fulfilled by merchant" without any shipping discounts over commercial plus means sellers are eating some of the costs and passing the rest to the customer. (And you could see this in Google searches nowdays).

 

It's sad as eBay is now having to learn the same lessons they had learned a few years back when they pushed ad's and Guaranteed Delivery. New people, new strategy, but on this specific issue they're making the same mistakes.

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SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson Leaving End Of April

I cannot comment on everything posted so far, but I remember some old posts / comments that it seemed eBay had a revolving door for former upper management. They leave, come back, cash out and leave again. 

 

I'm still confused on the ads! Only ad I hear is about eBay motors, but every day (it seems), the local news covers Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and others for the most stupid things, but it gets them constant coverage / free advertising to fill in their 4+ hours news.?

 

Reminds me of the old sales technique (pre cable / internet) which many here probably cannot understand called subliminal advertising (used at theaters and drive-ins) but now it just floods all social media outlets. 

 

 

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SVP Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson Leaving End Of April

And we have our answer - the new CPO is Eddie Garcia.  Previous eBayer from 2003-2014, CPO at Sam's Club when Iannone was there too and most recently Head of Commerce at Facebook.  The timing of those moves when compared with Jamie's is very interesting indeed. 😉

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddiegarcia/details/experience/

 

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