Bill & Meg show there’s life after eBay
July 8, 2008
Online travel company Orbitz have appointed Bill Cobb to their board of directors. Bill served as President of eBay North America until January, and had previously held a number of positions withing the company, including senior vice president and general manager of eBay International and senior vice president of global marketing.
Steve Barnhart, President of Orbitz Worldwide, said that he looked forward to benefiting from Bill’s advice and counsel. Orbitz own a number of online travel brands, including ebookers and cheaptickets.com.
Bill’s one-time boss Meg Whitman has also been mentioned several times recently as a possible Vice-President for Republican candidate John McCain.
John Donahoe and the eBay circus
April 2, 2008
Talking at the Catalyst conference at Pinehurst Scot Wingo today revealed his thoughts on how eBay will change under JD. When asked how eBay would change from a buyer and sellers viewpoint under JD, specifically in comparison to Meg Whitman and Bill Cobb, Wingo explained that the site is likely to become more business orientated.
Speaking of eBay Live!, due to take place in Chicago this June, Wingo likened JD to taking the “CEO of a fortune 100 company and seeing him run a circus”. Mentioning a square peg and a round hole he said one of JD’s challenges will be engaging with eBay buyers and sellers - something that Meg Whitman and Bill Cobb have excelled at.
Whilst Meg and Bill are exceptional and talented business people, they have always connected with the eBay community and appeared to enjoy contact with eBay buyers and sellers. This is something which to date JD has appeared uneasy with; eBay Live! in Chicago will be his first opportunity to set the tone for the eBay of the future.
$87450.00 windfall for Bill Cobb
June 19, 2007
On Friday whilst at eBay Live! Bill Cobb made $87450.00 in a pre-arranged purchase of eBay stock which he immediately resold. No wonder he was walking around with a huge smile the whole weekend.
In fairness as an eBay senior executive it was a trade that was arranged some time in the past, and not based on insider knowledge, but I’m guessing the windorphins kicked in regardless.
Bill is about to take a break from eBay and spend some time with his family. He told me one of his favourite pastimes is golf so he’ll be out on the greens during his time off. It’s a nice little bonus to ensure the green fees don’t hurt his pocket, but currently we don’t know when he’ll be returning to eBay after his break.
Lower FVFs for Canada too
June 19, 2007
The reduction in core FVFs announced by Bill Cobb last week is valid on eBay Canada too. The eBay Live! speech was very careful to make it crystal clear that his announcements related only to the .com site, but it seems that eBay’s President for North America was - in this instance at least - referring to the whole of his domain.
Which again raises the question, much discussed in recent days, of whether this special offer might be made on other eBay sites too. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, eBay UK sellers can take a little comfort in the thought that the offer is for all users on .com and .ca, so it will cost them a little less to try to regain their international visibility.
PayPal gave me something for free!
June 18, 2007
At the eBay Live! closing gala Bill Cobb and Meg Whitman presented eBay community awards to five eBayers and then Bill announced that PayPal wanted to give a present too - a $10 prepaid PayPal credit card.
Unfortunately Bill didn’t get the huge round of applause the announcement deserved. It sounded as if it was just for the five winners of community awards, in fact many were stunned that he’d mention a paltry $50.
Bill got the announcement wrong though, as people started to leave they realised he’d meant to say that PayPal were paying for a cab for EVERYONE at eBay Live! PayPal staff were handing out the creditcards to every single eBayer as they left for a free ride back to their hotels. I haven’t a clue how much it cost them in total, but I for one would like to say “Thank you”!
“Tell Doug McCallum and tell him I told you to tell him”
June 16, 2007
That’s the answer Bill Cobb gave at the eBay Live! Town Hall meeting when Sue asked if we could have eBay Live! in London, Paris or another European destination. Philipp Justus formerly Senior Vice President, eBay Europe was also on the stage and looked to Bill to answer the question.
Bill’s answer was straight forward and to the point “Tell Doug McCallum and tell him I told you to tell him”. Doug can look forward to hearing from Sue when she returns from the US 
Doug if you’re looking for Bill because he’s put the pressure on, you’ll find him in Michigan with his family probably playing golf - he’s taking some time out soon so you’re in charge of organising eBay Live! (Europe) 
Keynote: Bill Cobb
June 15, 2007
Bill Cobb brought his mum and dad to eBay Live this year, but he was in avuncular mood, announcing a raft of changes for later this year which should please sellers and buyers alike. Bill, or rather a “lawyer” from behind the scenes, was keen to stress that these apply to the .com site only; what’s in store for the rest of us remains a mystery.
“Reigniting the core” remains a priority for 2007; a new marketing program will talk about windorphins, the heady rush you get from winning an eBay auction.
The other big priority for eBay for the rest of the year is improving the user experience. New designs for the header and the home page have begun this process; though reception has generally been positive, many eBay Stores owners have complained that there is no Stores link in the header. The Stores link is to be restored, alongside the link to eBay Express, very shortly.
A new method of visual navigation is to be introduced in selected categories: apparently working alongside item specifics, this will turn up larger-than-Gallery pictures, with specifics of price, title, etc. available as a mouseover popup. This looks a great feature for those of us who buy and sell in highly visual categories: my dreams of selling more beads were instantly overcome by better dreams of buying more shoes
Another change coming to search is the unsnappily titled “price plus shipping search”: finally, buyers will be able to filter search results by TOTAL price, putting an end to 1p items with crazy shipping prices, and, of course, strongly discouraging such fee-avoiding practices.
Bidding will be made easier, with a single click bid available in the last 15 minutes of an auction: no longer will your snipe time be constrained by the speed of your computer. And to ensure you get that snipe in on time, eBay Countdown, described by Bill as “a big clock and price ticker thingy at the top of the page”, will be launched. This small window can be left open to remind you to go and snipe, and it doesn’t require any special download: I love this idea, and it might even rekindle some of the fun of auctions for me.
And for “top buyers”, telephone support will be available from September. Though it’s not clear exactly how many (or how few) buyers this will affect, it’s a complete first for eBay, and should at least make buyers feel that little bit safer trading on the site.
As far as sellers are concerned, Bill affirmed that eBay Stores continue to play a vital role: we are committed to the long term success of eBay Stores owners”. Featured Stores owners will, from September, have access to 24/7 telephone support. The price of Anchor Stores is being lowered by $200 per month to $299. This is the first hint that the crippling blows dealt to Stores last summer may be taking effect, and that eBay want to stop the rush of sellers to quit the site in favour of their own websites.
The US Powerseller Program will be extended to include volume sellers too; very much as the UK Program is at the moment, membership will be based on either sales value *or* volume. And the criteria will be changed for seasonal sellers too, so that they will have access to Powerseller support at the beginning of their busy period. Phone support will be available for Bronze Powersellers starting in the fall.
As of August 1st, Powersellers filing unpaid item strikes will have a refund not only of their FVFs, but also of feature fees. Though dependent on some listing requirements such as offering Paypal and having reasonable shipping fees, this is wonderful news for sellers, and should even encourage the take up of listing features.
Most excitingly, Powersellers are to be advantaged in “best match” search results. Demo results showed large Powerseller medallions alongside listing details in search, with Powersellers’ sales at the top of search results.
And finally, well, “we want more of your listings”. From June 19th to August 5th, the first tranche of FVFs on core listings will be reduced from 5.25% to 4.5%. It’s not quite the absolute fee reduction we predicted, but it should keep listings going through the summer holiday slump.
All in all, a very positive set of announcements from Bill Cobb that should please buyers and sellers alike. Now (in good TameBay tradition) can we please have them in the UK?
eBay gets a new baby - StumbleUpon
May 30, 2007
Meg’s been spending again, in the region of $75m for StumbleUpon.
For those that haven’t heard StumbleUpon is a discovery/search site. It aims to show you a combination of your own preferences and those of people like you to present websites, videos, photographs, and even information you didn’t even know you might like. That’s a great fit for eBay - if they can tie the technology into the auction platform they can promote listings you might like based on those people who have purchased similar items to you in the past like. For instance if you purchase clothes for a two year old they might present you with toys. Equally the software might establish that people with two year olds also purchase something totally unrelated and offer you a new hammock - you might just like it if others do!
Either way it’ll be interesting to see what eBay do with StumbleUpon, it can’t do any harm having an eBay owned toolbar on millions of browsers around the world!
UPDATE: Bill Cobb has just posted on the .com announcement board… they haven’t a clue how to integrate StumbleUpon with eBay, PayPal and Skype, but when they figure it out they’ll let us know!
eBay.com gets promotion that’s standard on .co.uk
March 12, 2007
eBay.com have announced a promotion for sellers that open a new store (shop to us in the UK!). Up until March 18th anyone opening a new basic or featured store for the first time will be eligible for a 30 day free trial.
To be honest I’m gobsmacked! It’s standard in the UK that when you open a shop for the first time you always get a 30 day free trial whether you choose featured or basic, the only time you don’t have a free trial is if you open an anchor shop. eBay know that sellers that open a shop go on to sell more - this shouldn’t be a limited time offer, it should be standard for all sellers on eBay.com just as it is on eBay.co.uk. Cobb and Linton need to get their heads together on this offer and extend it indefinitely!
The only advice I can offer anyone in the US is TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF THE OFFER and OPEN AN EBAY STORE TODAY!
Feedback 2.0 is live and I already hate it
March 6, 2007
Feedback 2.0 has been enabled on many eBay sites around the world and buyers and sellers are exploring with interest, although by no means with universal approval. In fact this is one of the most hated changes on eBay I’ve ever known!.
The detested Detailed Seller Ratings are of course enabled, time will tell how many buyers leave them, and whether in general they prove to differentiate sellers. I still suspect buyers will in time start to leave four out of five - anyone that’s filled out ranking surveys will recognise that it’s not the norm to leave the highest score available.
The page is particularly badly laid out, in fact it just looks a mess with new sections squeezed in. It’s a shame they didn’t get the guys that designed the new eBay.co.uk home page to lay out the new feedback view. Useful links to About Me, Trading Assistant, reviews and guides and ID History being hidden on a drop down menu. Strangely they’ve added a “View Item” link, but haven’t bothered to make the item title or number clickable. The page is also much longer as each feedback now takes two lines instead of one. Finally some of the fonts on the page have been reduced in size, and the detailed seller rating box dwarfs the size of the recent feedback ratings.
Of course Cobb also promised it would be “introduced, monitored, tweaked and only when running smoothly and any ill effects ironed out introduced on the North American site“. In other words he doesn’t care less about International markets. Feedback was the one thing that set eBay apart from other sites, now eBay have trashed it we might as well be selling on Amazon for those that know what a joke feedback there is.
It’s a sad day for eBay, in trying to improve something that was working they’ve ruined the one unique feature that set the site apart. 
All you need is love and lower eBay fees
February 14, 2007
Today’s world outbreak of tackiness has reached even San Jose California, with a Valentine’s Day treat from Philipp Justus: 50% off auction insertion fees on the .com site.
This is Justus’ first time on the .com Announcements board, and it’s interesting to see him very much playing second fiddle to his boss: “…working for Bill Cobb. … As Bill has said…” We do hope they’ll continue to be happy together.
Town Hall : more feedback changes to come?
January 26, 2007
Last night’s eBay Town Hall was not so much about the new, as communicating eBay’s conviction that all their recent changes were great, and that members who are complaining are completely in the minority. Seller concerns about the unintended effects of the anti-counterfeiting policy, for example, were dismissed in half a sentence: “we know we’re impacting some sellers but…” Butt is exactly where Bill Cobb needs to get his head out of if he’s going to keep sellers onside with that one.
After sixteen minutes of riffing with Griff, we finally got onto some real questions. Predictably, changes to feedback were a feature, and it seems that the recently announced “Feedback 2.0” is not the end of the changes. Matt Halprinn, “resident Town Hall trust and safety guy”, commented that:
With feedback 2.0, if a buyer rates a seller low on accuracy of item description, say a 1 or a 2 on a scale from 1 to 5, we’re actually going to pop up another question that asks why, and one of the possibilities is was it a counterfeit or was it a fake.
And that’s a good idea: you might even start to sell me on Feedback 2.0 like that. Assuming, of course, that eBay have the support staff to investigate.
Over the last few days, several sellers have said, some in jest and some not, that they would like the ability to rate buyers as they themselves will be rated. This had mixed reactions from the Town Hall panel, with some pointing out that it would make eBay unique on the internet, as buyers are almost never rated by merchants: whether this in itself would raise eBay’s appeal was also a matter for debate. But the thought of “a gold dollar bill sign next to a buyer that pays fast” appealed to some, and we were promised more than once that “everything is on the table”: looks like this is not the end of feedback changes.
Policies against excessive shipping and handling also look set to change: “we are all over the shipping issue, but it’s more complicated than we thought.” No kidding: the policy was a sledgehammer when first implemented, so let’s hope this promises something a little more subtle.
And finally, unlikely as it seems, a call to promote eBay Stores (Shops in the UK) more prominently, met with apparent approval from the Cobbster: “good idea, I’ll take that back to the Stores team”. Fingers, as ever, crossed.
eBay fourth quarter conference call upbeat and positive
January 24, 2007
Meg had the enviable position of talking to investors shortly after releasing better than expected financial results. Apart from allowing that overall margin is down slightly and that Skype has room to grow and deliver more for eBay’s bottom line the fourth quarter was cracker.
The worries that Google Checkout might impact the PayPal business were unfounded. In fact it’s possible that the hype about Checkout went some way to increasing PayPals business as reality of PayPal’s superior flexibility for both consumers and merchants bore fruit.
Finally something to look forward to - with the move of Philipp Justus from Germany and arrival to eBay of Michael Linton from bestbuy, Meg promises some innovative ideas will be coming to revitalise the auction format on eBay. It’s true - we do love the fun side of business!
All in all as predicted much more upbeat than the third quarter’s conference call, a strong performance with good results is always sweeter to swallow.
EU know it’s a load of cobblers
January 19, 2007
So far, these efforts appear to be paying off with minimal disruption to our legitimate sellers.
That’s Bill Cobb referring to the effects of the new “Building Trust by Reducing Counterfeits” policy. Exactly which sellers is Cobb talking about here? The couple of hundred cherry-picked and invited to listen to his spiel in San Jose? Or the thousands of sellers around the world outside the Ivory Towers who are struggling to maintain their sales on eBay?
We reported last week the huge problems Spanish sellers are having now that they’re unable to list or ship outside Spain. The European Union is working to remove all cross border trade restrictions.
Suddenly removing the ability for Spanish sellers to sell luxury goods across Europe is taking European Internet commerce back years at a single stroke, and it’s not just the Spanish! All the other EU sites are in the same position, it’s just I don’t speak good enough Italian to communicate with those guys and report on the situation there!
There’s another serious consequence of the new policy too, sellers who have been regularly selling on eBay for a number of years are suddenly finding their ability to make a living is severely restricted. A quick browse of almost any community board reveals sellers fighting to be able to list the inventory they have for sale.
This quote is not an isolated incident, and we’re not talking about sellers that have only just started out on eBay. These are sellers who have been trading for years and in many cases rely on eBay for their entire income.
It’s all very well for Bill Cobb whose remit is eBay North America to state that sellers aren’t being disrupted, but maybe if he cast his eye across the water to Europe he’d find a very different story. It is not the biggest sellers on the North American continent who are suffering, it’s the rank and file of sellers worldwide who have piles of inventory and are suddenly barred from marketing their goods to the customers they purchased them for.
Keynotes sounding flat with sellers
January 18, 2007
Yesterday, a number of important announcements about changes to eBay were made by Bill Cobb. Leaving aside the question of why the Head of Marketplaces North America is announcing changes that are being implemented anywhere *but* north America, we’ll be looking at some of these changes in detail over the next few posts.
Cobb’s announcement said that for eBay, 2007 will see them:
- Reinvest in eBay’s core by simplifying the site, improving finding, and accentuating the things that make eBay fun and unique.
- Take a more proactive approach to Trust & Safety to protect our members from fraud.
- Improve the buyer experience on the site by holding sellers to higher minimum standards
This all sounds great in theory, but it’s already obvious that the implementation is not quite the breeze they’d have us believe.
A bad idea
January 17, 2007
Sometimes I really hate being right.
More in the morning when I have un-lost my temper.
Cobb phish
December 21, 2006
As a special holiday gift for my friend Fruity, I’d like to share the lastest phishing email (fifteen copies received this morning). I have been known to say that the sheer volume of eBay phishes are just an indication of eBay’s success, but I’m really not sure what to make of this one:
Click the piccie to read the full, nauseatingly patronising but somehow familiar text.
Poor Bill: I bet he’s really looking forward to the next Town Hall now.
Another management appointment at eBay
December 9, 2006
As part of eBay’s far reaching management changes eBay Strategies report Michael Linton (formerly CMO of BestBuy) is coming to eBay to run the non-core parts of eBay: Motors, Stores/Shops, Express and ProStores. Linton will report to Bill Cobb and work with Gary Briggs, senior VP-chief marketing officer. It’s a big step into the auction world and with parts in motors being the fastest growing category on eBay (sell through rate is one per second) a retailers experience makes sense. Express and ProStores could do with a boost, it’s no secret that Express is growing much slower than sellers would like.
Along with the news of Philipp Justus moving to San José to oversee the auction business and the appointment of Dr. Daniel Lee as General Manager for their China Development Center in Shanghai, news of the management changes is slow to be announced. We are still expecting several significant appointments in some of eBay’s fastest growing sectors to be announced in the near future.
As eBay move towards the new year they are realigning their management to focus on driving business forward in 2007. Putting decision making power in the hands of key leaders who align their attention to the buyers or sellers experience of the site can only be a good move and hopefully avoid debacles such as the shop inventory changes made and reversed in 2006.
Bill Cobb makes way for Philipp Justus at eBay
December 1, 2006
Updates: Executive Shake Up at eBay US
We’re hearing that there’s been a shake up at eBay at the top management level. Philipp Justus Senior Vice President, eBay Europe will be transferring to eBay Corporate headquarters in San Jose, California to head up US Business reporting in to high profile eBay veteran Bill Cobb from January.
Rumours broke late on Friday when German blogs responded to an eBay.de press release announcing the move. Although no official eBay US source has confirmed the rumours, it’s expected Bill Cobb will retain overall control of the North American business which also includes eBay Canada.
“Justus has done great work over the last seven years to build our business in Germany and more recently throughout Europe. I am therefore delighted that Philipp is moving to our Ebay headquarters in San José, and I am convinced that he will have a equally strong influence in his new role,” said Meg Whitman, eBay’s President.
Executive changes have blighted eBay’s reputation with Wall Street this year. In particular, Jeff Jordan’s departure in the summer spooked analysts. Apparently this is not the only change in senior corporate management and we expect more news from eBay in the next few days. So far a successor for Justus in Europe has yet to be appointed.
