Another management appointment at eBay

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.