Meg Whitman, eBay’s CEO, is stepping down after a brutal year for the company. The New York Times reports that John Donahoe will be promoted from president of the Marketplace division, and will assume his new role on 31 March. The Times ran a story about Donahoe on 21 February 2007.
It has been a brutal year for eBay. The company’s stock price has dropped by a third in the last 90 days. The e-commerce sector continues to grow, but eBay’s market share is shrinking. This interview published today by Reuters, Donahoe claims that eBay will rebound in a recession as casual sellers return to eBay to earn additional income.
eBay’s acquisition of Skype has been a disappointment, even with an additional 30 million subscribers in the last quarter of 2007 – see IP Democracy for more details. Last August’s outage damaged the VoIP’s service’s reputation and customer standing. In this 2 October 2007 article, I discussed how competitive rivalry was increasing in the VoIP industry. eBay may never recover its investment in Skype.
Another eBay acquisition has attracted attention in Hawaii. StubHub, which was mentioned in this 12 December 2007 article in the Star-Bulletin, became an important secondary market for 2008 Sugar Bowl tickets.
24 January 2008: Here’s an article about Donahoe from yesterday’s BusinessWeek. He’s committed to an eBay turnaround, even if it hurts the stock price. First task: reduce the seller fees. Next: make eBay an easier and safer web site for buyers and sellers. As the New York Times points out, better search tools may be an important part of the second task.
