“Lorrie has led eBay Marketplaces through significant fundamental change as we drive a multiyear turnaround strategy to enhance the shopping experience for buyers and sellers and evolve eBay as a global ecommerce and mobile commerce leader,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “For personal family reasons, Lorrie made a decision to do what’s best for eBay and for her family, and I respect that. I wish her the very best and thank her for many contributions to our company and our nearly 92 million active eBay users.”

Lorrie has led eBay Marketplaces since July 2008 and has been with the company since 2005. I have had the opportunity and very great pleasure of working with Lorrie a lot over the past 3 years and I will be sad to say goodbye but wish her all the best.

In addition to announcing this management change, the company said it expects its third quarter 2010 results to be near the high end of the guidance provided on July 21. The company expects to report third quarter 2010 results on October 20. I plan on live-blogging our quarterly earnings call as usual.

-RBH

My interview with Lorrie was originally intended to air to an internal audience – I had planned on putting this video together for employees only – but thought that the conversation was timely and a good Q&A session for external folks too. I particularly liked Lorrie’s challenge to all eBay employees. I couldn’t agree more.

Cheers,
RBH

First, John announced that Stephanie Tilenius, head of global product and North America for eBay, has decided to transition out of her current role. She’ll become an advisor to John for the next few months and plans to leave the company in early 2010, following nine years with eBay. Having been in her current role for two years, Stephanie says she felt that with eBay’s turnaround under way, now was the right time for her to pursue other career ambitions, including opportunities to lead a company as CEO. Stephanie says she’s proud of the progress the eBay team has made, and she believes eBay’s best days are still ahead.

In a note to employees, John praised Stephanie’s passion and commitment for the business, and cited her many accomplishments over the past nine years, including building eBay’s business in Korea and Asia Pacific, strengthening eBay Motors, building PayPal’s merchant services from virtually nothing to a $1 billion-plus and rapidly growing business and, most important, her critical role in leading the eBay Marketplaces turnaround.

Stephanie’s position will not be filled, a move she recommended to further streamline and simplify eBay’s management structure. With that decision, Lorrie Norrington assumes direct responsibility for eBay North America, in addition to her role as the global head of eBay Marketplaces. Lorrie announced several changes, including the creation of a combined global product and technology team to be led by Mark Carges, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Combining product and technology is intended to help eBay accelerate innovation and optimize its end-to-end customer experience for sellers and buyers.

Also with an eye toward creating better experiences for sellers and buyers, Norrington announced that Dinesh Lathi will lead a combined seller and buyer organization, responsible for ensuring a seamless end-to-end customer experience.

From what I can tell at first glance, these changes can only mean good news for eBay buyers and sellers. Streamlining the business operations of any organization is a positive in the long run. In the case of eBay, and the real-time business of ecommerce, this should make for immediate returns. We’ve heard it repeatedly over the past year+ – everything the company does is directed at delivering trust, value and selection for buyers and velocity, efficiency and reliability for sellers.

I’m traveling this week to Shop.org in anticipation of John’s keynote there on Wednesday morning. I’m hoping to sit down with him and talk about today’s news; get his perspective… and yes, I’m taking the Flipcam.

Cheers,
RBH

Bottom line, the whole team over there – Delyn, Max, Adam, Laura, Kumar (I could go on) – put on another fantastic agenda and the feedback from those in attendance that I talked to was overwhelmingly positive. Great job to everyone who had a hand in making this year’s Developers Conference such a success.

Presentations

If you check out my preview blog post from earlier this week, you can access hyperlinks to PowerPoint presentations of every session over the past two days.

Keynotes

A thorough breakdown of the opening keynote on Wednesday, can be found here.

The second day of opening keynotes maintained the theme of “building your business with us”, and welcomed four notable Silicon Valley venture capitalists to share their insights on funding, business trends, and good business practices. Lorrie Norrington followed the panel discussing eBay’s future. Here is the full breakdown of the second day of keynotes.

For the most comprehensive coverage of the two-day event, please visit the eBay Developer Blog. It has everything from breakdowns of each session, to video interviews with attendees and employees. There’s a lot of content there, so I give you advance warning of getting sucked in – but if you have the time, it’s well worth the deep dive.

Finally, I would have been remiss if I didn’t take advantage of getting a few minutes with Max Mancini, Senior Director of Platform and Mobile for eBay.

Cheers,
RBH

5 Minutes with… Max Mancini

Full Name: Massimiliano Mancini
Nickname: Max
Official Title: Senior Director, Platform and Mobile
What You Really Do: Run eBay’s Platform and Mobile businesses, including the developers program, the technical product management team for our new platform initiative, the technical documentation team and eBay’s mobile team.
Your First Day at eBay: December, 2003
Education/Schooling: BS in Computer Science (Mathematics) and MS in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University
Interests: Cycling, Sailing, coaching Lacrosse
Favorite Quote: “Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it” — unknown
Most memorable eBay experience: Train conducting (??)
Most recent eBay purchase/sale: A righting bucket for my 16ft Hobie Cat sailboat, which I dropped in the ocean on my first outing 4 days after I got it.
Favorite Albums: Who buys albums?? If I had to pick it would be AC/DC “Back in Black”
Favorite Movies: Transformers, and not because of the eBay references.
What You Wanted to Be Growing Up: Software Engineer

Fill in the blanks:

I should have “gone to sleep earlier” yesterday.
I wish that I could “have more time”.
The first thing I do when I get to work is “say good morning to my co-workers”

I wanted to double check the details around the eBay DevCon later this month, and noticed that the keynote speaker lineup is pretty impressive. In addition to speeches and presentations by John Donahoe, eBay President and CEO; Mark Carges, CTO and SVP of Global Platform at eBay; and Lorrie Norrington, President of eBay Marketplaces; the conference also boasts the following Silicon Valley visionaries and venture capitalists:

- John Hagel, Co-Chairman, Deloitte Center for the Edge
- Mark Gorenberg, Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
- Rob Hayes, Partner, First Round Capital
- Sergio Monsalve, Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
- Ravi Mohan, Managing Director, Shasta Ventures
- Charlene Li, Founder, Altimeter Group

Looking at the schedule, the only problem I seem to be faced with is determining which of the tracks to attend at a given time. For those of you unable to go, take a look and let me know which presentations are of most interest so I can live-blog from those via Twitter.

I’ll be live-blogging all day June 16 and 17. Let me know if you’re attending so we can connect.

If you haven’t registered yet, you still can do by clicking here.

Cheers!
RBH

According to PayPal, there were 34% more transactions than 2007 and there was a 26% increase in online payment volume on Black Friday.

I found all of this information at the “eBay Holiday Media Source”. The site has been up for a few weeks now and is aimed at providing press and media with information, stats and news around eBay’s holiday offers, traffic, promotions and tips. This weekend, they posted the following media release with data coming out of Black Friday.

All great info of course but I’d like to see more. Especially more than just consumer electronics. Let’s see all the categories. Which are up? Which are down? How did Fixed Price fair vs Auctions? I’ll dig around to see if can find out more on that front.

I also saw that the Nielsen Online Holiday Shopping Index had eBay as the top online retail destination on Black Friday with 9.8 million unique visitors (Nielsen also had eBay as the top online retail destination for the month of October). However, with a number of conflicting traffic reports out there for online retail traffic that cropped up over the past week (some blogs were citing ComScore numbers, others use Nielsen as a benchmark), I want to see more information behind the figures before drawing any definitive conclusions.

In related news, eBay President of Marketplaces, Lorrie Norrington appeared on Fox Business News yesterday alongside Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne to discuss Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday shopping season.

Cheers,
RBH

1) According to a recent blog post by Randy Smythe, eBay has become a fixed price market but according to a recent eBay webinar presented by Todd Lutwak, auctions are alive and well and “auction style still accounts for 70% of the listings on the first page of search results.” This seems contradictory or are they both right? Is there equal room for both formats in the marketplace?

Yes, there is plenty of room on eBay for auctions and fixed price, and what Todd was driving at is that there are specific strategies for succeeding with both. It is not “this OR that” it is “this AND that”. But I think you are missing the broader point.

What’s been said outside of eBay is that lower prices and free shipping are “what eBay wants”. The reality is that it doesn’t matter what eBay wants… eBay.com is a marketplace and that means neither eBay nor our sellers get to set the price of goods sold on the site, buyers do. This is as true in auctions as it is in fixed price. Lower prices and free shipping are what buyers want.

The difference today is that buyers know how much items are worth because they can compare prices easily across the web. Whether you’re selling in auctions or fixed price or both, the point is that you are competing against the entire universe of merchants, not just other eBay sellers, and if you want to win the sale you have to price yourself accordingly.

Layer on top of that a lousy economic picture, where consumer demand is declining and inventory levels are swelling, and you have a lot of downward pressure on prices across the board. All you have to do is look at last Thursday’s NY Times and you’ll see that this is not limited to eBay.

2. Back in April I posted a video interview where Pierre talks about the “Level Playing Field” – where all sellers are treated equally – as being core to eBay. Yet within weeks we established the Diamond Tier of PowerSeller under which those who qualify receive negotiated pricing that is better than what’s available to most sellers. Isn’t this a contradiction?

When we think about Level Playing Field, we tend to focus on equal access to opportunity. In other words, anyone can come to eBay start a business, establish a track record and grow according to their capabilities. It doesn’t mean we will treat everyone the same, regardless of their track record and capabilities, but it does mean that we will make it possible for anyone to succeed.

In terms of the Diamond Tier of PowerSeller, we are willing to negotiate special pricing with any seller who can meet the very high customer service and volume requirements we demand of these sellers. Making it possible for anyone to access our market and succeed as a seller and offering incentives to the very best sellers are not mutually exclusive goals.

3. But back in May, Lorrie Norrington stated here that small sellers are our competitive advantage. If that’s true, why would we give a competitive advantage to the very largest sellers?

First of all, any seller of any size can list an item in the auction format today and they are virtually guaranteed that their item will get to the top of search results as their auction comes to a close. This is absolutely as true today as it was in 1998.

Second, our goal is to provide a vibrant and extremely competitive marketplace. In pursuit of this goal, we have recognized that the scale and capabilities of large merchants absolutely enhances buyer demand for eBay items. However, the needs of very large sellers differ from the more typical eBay seller and that has spurred us to both negotiate bulk pricing and to add things like Large Merchant Services APIs (which we did today).

At the same time, we know that many buyers shop eBay not just because of the values and selection, but also because of the one-of-a-kind experiences small sellers create. So we must continue our appeal to small sellers and do everything we can to help them stay competitive. To this end, we are still the best place on the Web to start a business because of the low barrier to entry and because we allow sellers to build a brand and own the relationship with their buyers. To help sellers stay competitive, we are offering more useful advice, such as last week’s webinar.

4. Jack Sheng recently visited eBay HQ to celebrate reaching 1 MM feedback as a seller – something he accomplished in a relatively small amount of time but he started out before 2008; I recently wrote a post that stated I still believe eBay is one of the best places to launch a business online, but is it really still possible to start today and enjoy the kind of success Jack has had?

Not only is it still possible, with FP30 it may be even more likely. Jack built his business in an extremely competitive category and through experimentation, smarts and determination built something hugely successful. What’s more, he did all this on an eBay platform that was simply not optimized to enable sellers like Jack who wanted to move mass quantity. Today, a new seller who can access well priced inventory will find a partner in eBay that can more readily on board them and scale with them as they grow. It is not easy and it is not for everyone, but there are literally millions of people and businesses who are profitably making eBay work for them.

UPDATED 11/25/08
I’ve seen a few comments on blogs and Twitter that suggest that Diamond PowerSellers receive special treatment with regard to their DSRs. Something that I’ve been told on a number of occasions is simply untrue. As a result, I went back to Dinesh and asked him specifically about that. He responded with the following:

“As a requirement for listing on eBay, all sellers – regardless of volume, category, and PS level (including Diamond Level) and without exception – must adhere to the same standards with respect to DSRs, feedback and policy compliance.”

UPDATED 11/26/08:
Todd Lutwak also sent me the following in email this morning:

“We have not, are not currently, and will not manipulate feedback or DSR’s for any seller on eBay.”

Related Reads:
Mercent Launches Enterprise Seller Tools for eBay and PayPal

Another day is coming to a close here in lovely (but slightly overcast) Chicago and, with the exception of Monday night, I haven’t had a chance to see much of the city so I plan on getting out for a little R&R this evening… Before I do though, a few things to report on from day 2. I apologize for the length in advance.

The morning started off with the much anticipated keynote highlighted by presentations by John Donahoe and Lorrie Norrington and the presentation of awards to 2008 Hall of Fame winners. Both John and Lorrie took an extremely personal approach to their presentations (as a native of Chicago, John’s parents were in the audience and we got to see some rather candid, amusing photos from his childhood). His presentation borrowed much from yesterday’s stockholder meeting citing interesting facts and figures regarding the eBay marketplace. Lorrie’s presentation focused on a number of the announcements reported yesterday.

What was ever-present throughout both Lorrie and John’s presentations was a sense of genuine personality and good humor that was well received by the audience which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about a lot since I arrived on Sunday. DevCon and eBay Live! provide an opportunity for worlds to collide. Statistics on a presentation slide become human beings… and seemingly untouchable executives aren’t in an ivory tower. There is a palpable sense that we’re all in this together and we’re all doing what we think is best for the marketplace… and we’re not always going to agree on what that is.

Which leads to the elephant in the living room (aka the McCormick Conference Center here in Chicago): changes to Feedback. It wasn’t all sun and fun during the keynote. When Lorrie reported on the successes eBay has seen with the changes introduced earlier this year there was audible heckling but there was also genuine applause to the following statement:

“When we first announced the PowerSeller incentives in January, we knew that 60% of PowerSellers had DSRs of 4.6 and above,” Lorrie said. “Today, that number is 67%. Also, in January, 15 percent of PowerSellers had DSR of 4.8 and above and today that number has more than doubled with 33% with DSRs of 4.8 or greater.”

Lorrie encouraged all attendees to go to the Feedback panel taking place immediately following the keynote to discuss further… which was very encouraging. However, the room in which that panel was taking place was not large enough to house the number of people wanting to attend (candidly, it should have been at least twice the size it was) and only an hour was allocated for the panel discussion (it could have been at least an extra half an hour to accommodate the extra questions that would have been asked). I managed to get a spot at the front of the room after the presentation period ended (I’ve asked Brian Burke if I can get his slides to share with Ink readers) but before the Q&A panel began.

As anticipated it was a heated discussion at times with calls coming from the audience sometimes drowing out both panelists and people asking questions at the microphone. Having said that, I thought it was a great discussion and pretty productive with a lot of the same questions that came up here on Ink last month. Griff played devil’s advocate to the rest of the panelists which made for some good back-and-forth. My question got asked about half way through by a longtime PowerSeller (why not get rid of neutral feedback all together?) and Chris Dawson from TameBay asked “Shouldn’t every communication of importance be in “My Messages”? (Take it out of email all together)”… which could actually go a long way in dealing with the lack-of-proof issue that comes when reporting extortion. Essentially the issue of forged emails wouldn’t be a factor if all of this was captured in the My Messages tool.

There was also talk of being able to debit a PayPal account when an auction closes starting early next year which seemed to excite a number of folks too.

If you weren’t able to follow my “Tweets” from the panel, you can get a blow-by-blow account at Greg Holden’s live blogging report HERE.

Tomorrow, I look forward to getting out of the classrooms and onto the Solutions Center Expo floor. I’ll also be live blogging from the Town Hall Meeting at 11am CT and the PowerSeller Panel with Execs at 3pm CT tomorrow so if you haven’t done it yet, please go to http://twitter.com/ebayinkblog and start “following me.” But, it is Saturday tomorrow, and I will not be offended if you choose to do something better with your time than to read what I have to say in 140 characters or less every 60 seconds.

Cheers,
RBH