eBay has a new VP Seller Experience!

[valueaddedresource]

I was a bit confused yesterday when I saw that CEO Jamie Iannone, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia conference, said he had brought in a new Head of Selling - that was the first I had heard of a possible new hire for the position and as far as I know, no big announcement has been made.

So I dug around a bit and found the answer buried at the very bottom of the eBay Open speakers list, Xiaodi Zhang is the new VP Seller Experience.

Xiaodi Zhang has recently rejoined eBay as VP of Seller Experience, which includes seller inventory management tools, shipping, messages, stores and feedback.

During her career, Xiaodi has built a reputation for positioning startups and established companies to innovate, evolve, and thrive in competitive global markets. Previously, at eBay, she was a Director in Buyer Experience, where she created a Product Management and Design organization at eBay’s Development Center in Shanghai.

Xiaodi is the latest boomerang rehire, returning to eBay after a 10 year stint as Chief Product Officer at 1stDibs. In her previous time at eBay, she filled various product management roles starting in 2004 and was Director of Buyer experience from 2007-2010.

I'm sure we can all agree *a lot* has changed around here since 2010. It will be interesting to hear what Xiaodi thinks of all those changes and what her plans are to improve the selling experience going forward.

Can't wait to hear from her at eBay Open next week!

[dbfolks166mt]

The time to bury that is long overdue. Let it go. That was years ago.

That seems to be the modern era theme burry history so people forget about it. 

[chapeau-noir]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@sextons-sweet-deals wrote:

I have to question why there has been so many who either left on their own or was forced and then return. Is that really a normal practice in the corporate management world? 

O.P. comment: boomerang rehire

I remember an older post in the past calling it a revolving door for previous employees. 

Just very interesting to me!

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@sextons-sweet-deals  there has been a lot of high level turnover just in the last 6 months and while yes a certain amount of it is to be expected in the corporate world, it definitely makes you wonder.

Just a few examples:

Chief Product Officer Pete Thompson left in April, replaced by Eddie Garcia, another boomerang rehire.

VP Buyer Experience Product & Engineering Mohan Patt left in April to become VP, Engineering, Commerce at Meta/Facebook - no replacement announced.

VP Buyer Experience Bradford Shellhammer left in June to become Chief Product Officer at Etsy owned musical instrument marketplace Reverb - no replacement announced.

VP Engineering Seller Experience Scot Hamilton left in July to take a role at Amazon as VP Planning and Routing Technology - no replacement announced.

VP Stores Tom Pinckney left in July - no replacement announced.

Head of Europe Rob Hattrell and SVP International Joo Man Park both also left in July. Instead of replacing them, eBay has opted to consolidate all domestic and international operations under Jordan Sweetnam, previously SVP GM Americas, now SVP Global Markets.

Several of those who've left and gone to competitors had been at eBay 16+ years, which begs the question why they'd leave after all that time.

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I expect they feel like they're probably getting stale and need to move on.  I've never stayed at a company for 16 years because it was simply bad for my career if I was not able to move into allied expertise at that company.

[ittybitnot]

@valueaddedresource 

Just an observation.  It appears that "promoting from within" is not real big at eBay? Need a new VP?  Hire from outside.  What happened to the people in the 'second in command' positions? 

[meme6253]

One Can Only Hope!!

[meme6253]

Oh Yeah That!!

[valueaddedresource]

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@ittybitnot wrote:

@valueaddedresource 

Just an observation.  It appears that "promoting from within" is not real big at eBay? Need a new VP?  Hire from outside.  What happened to the people in the 'second in command' positions? 

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@ittybitnot  it seems more like they do "promote from within" but on a delay...hence all the boomerangers that leave for a while and then come back. 🤣

Honestly though, I don't know what's up with it and I guess that's why I find it concerning that some of the long timers have left - especially people like Mohan Patt, who I thought would have been a great internal promotion to take over as Chief Product Officer when Pete Thompson left.

[valueaddedresource]

Also, while it isn't as high level as some of the others I mentioned, I noticed Senior Manager Collectibles & Toys Steve Halupka posted on LinkedIn that he left the company last week.

It was a pretty sudden departure - he was actually still listed as a presenter for one of the sessions at Open and they just removed him from the agenda yesterday I believe.

He was the one who was supposed to come here once a month to engage with sellers as part of the Voices program....and if you're wondering what happened to that, apparently it's been archived. 🙄

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Share-Community-Platform/Seller-Voices/td-p/32099143 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Voices-for-Collectibles/idb-p/voices-collectibles 

[itsjustasprain]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

During her career, Xiaodi has built a reputation for positioning startups and established companies to innovate, evolve, and thrive in competitive global markets. Previously, at eBay, she was a Director in Buyer Experience, where she created a Product Management and Design organization at eBay’s Development Center in Shanghai.

...

I'm sure we can all agree *a lot* has changed around here since 2010. It will be interesting to hear what Xiaodi thinks of all those changes and what her plans are to improve the selling experience going forward.

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That mention of a development center in Shanghai kind of leapt off the page at me. Given how much Chinese garbage is diluting the product mix already I have to wonder what exactly she was doing over there and what she plans to improve next.

[valueaddedresource]

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

During her career, Xiaodi has built a reputation for positioning startups and established companies to innovate, evolve, and thrive in competitive global markets. Previously, at eBay, she was a Director in Buyer Experience, where she created a Product Management and Design organization at eBay’s Development Center in Shanghai.

...

I'm sure we can all agree *a lot* has changed around here since 2010. It will be interesting to hear what Xiaodi thinks of all those changes and what her plans are to improve the selling experience going forward.

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That mention of a development center in Shanghai kind of leapt off the page at me. Given how much Chinese garbage is diluting the product mix already I have to wonder what exactly she was doing over there and what she plans to improve next.

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@itsjustasprain that jumped out at me too. However, just to avoid any confusion, it's important to understand the context and lingo - on the tech side of things "product" means the software, systems, tools etc. that the developers create, not physical/manufactured items that would be sold on the site.

Her LinkedIn profile gives more details about her previous time at eBay as well that confirms she's talking about a software/tech development center where they worked on projects involving Search, Merchandising, eBay Stores, and more.

She was apparently even awarded a couple of patents on some of the work she did on Search - for whatever that's worth.

I'm sure there's a lot we could say about some of the code that comes from the overseas devs being just as bad as some of the products actually for sale on the site that come from overseas too, but that's a whole other thing. 😉

[a_c_green]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:
I'm sure there's a lot we could say about some of the code that comes from the overseas devs being just as bad as some of the products actually for sale on the site that come from overseas too, but that's a whole other thing. 

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Agreed, though I've seen no evidence of the code being of Chinese origin. Everything I've seen to date indicates European origins. eBay, perhaps understandably, doesn't want to talk about it.

[wrong66]

I wonder if she has ever been a seller on eBay. Probably not likely.

[valueaddedresource]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@valueaddedresource wrote:
I'm sure there's a lot we could say about some of the code that comes from the overseas devs being just as bad as some of the products actually for sale on the site that come from overseas too, but that's a whole other thing. 

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Agreed, though I've seen no evidence of the code being of Chinese origin. Everything I've seen to date indicates European origins. eBay, perhaps understandably, doesn't want to talk about it.

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@a_c_green  agree, especially with some of the recent issues, like the sold item emails there does appear to be a European flavor, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if a lot of the current code is coming from there.

All jokes aside, I'm happy the new VP Seller Experience appears to have some tech background. A lot of sellers I know really miss how Harry Temkin used to give us demos on new tools and features and I'm hopeful with her product background maybe we'll see more of that kind of engagement again. 🤞

[skeletonstore]

She will continue to evolve the pro amazon dropshipper experience and show less of our listings since most of us can't make enough money to satisfy those who don't work(ebay shareholders)and have never worked . 

[craigstevensstudio]

so many of us old sellers just got tired of not being cared about and no customer service.    i tried for over a month to get ebay to help me do something as verify my phone number so i could sell on ebay.   (it took me 2 minutes to do that same verification with pay pal)   nothing but customer service run arounds and people here on the forum telling me it was all my fault.    if i cannot trust ebay to do something as simple as verify my phone number then how can i have confidence that they will help me with other problems that may come up?     i am not the only one that had had enough.   hope she is able to  give some comfidence to sellers that feel forgotten and disrespected.

[a_c_green]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@a_c_green wrote:

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@valueaddedresource wrote:
I'm sure there's a lot we could say about some of the code that comes from the overseas devs being just as bad as some of the products actually for sale on the site that come from overseas too, but that's a whole other thing. 

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Agreed, though I've seen no evidence of the code being of Chinese origin. Everything I've seen to date indicates European origins. eBay, perhaps understandably, doesn't want to talk about it.

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@a_c_green  agree, especially with some of the recent issues, like the sold item emails there does appear to be a European flavor, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if a lot of the current code is coming from there.

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That reminds me that the very large software company I worked for up until a few years back also made use of contract programmers in Europe. Our biggest group was actually in Ukraine, although they had to flee in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and things in Ukraine (at least in that part) were looking really dicey. 

They did really good work for us, though we did a lot more QA testing and code review than eBay does with theirs, and we had to work within the parameters of the 8-hour time difference between us and them to plan schedules for how soon we could expect new releases from them, and when we would need to send feedback or bug reports back to them in order to give them full business days to work on things. The problem isn't offshore programming; it's in managing your people over there to ensure clear goals and good results, and not let problems drag on forever.