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This week’s ebay for business podcast includes a recording/transcript of Jordan Sweetnam speaking at a recent ebay Meet Up in San Jose. It’s worth reading the entire thing (including the short Q&A) but I’ve done a C&P of his main remarks (I know, it’s a wall o’ text, but that’s the way it is on ebay). Original can be found here: https://community.ebay.com/t5/The-eBay-for-Business-Podcast/Episode-81-Spring-Seller-Update-amp-SVP-amp-GM-Jordan-Sweetnam/ba-p/30725120
Our special guest this evening with Jordan Sweetnam. He has been at eBay only a short while right now, but prior to leaving a few years ago, he’d been 11 years at the company. So excited to have him back and leading the North America business. Jordan.
It is great to be here. So I joined in 2004, I joined EBAY and was here through 2016 and then I went to Walmart for three years. Like, ugh crazy. But the truth is I figured if I was going to compete with Amazon and lose, I wasn’t going to do that here. I was going to do that at Walmart and it was an amazing experience. But when I left actually wasn’t really happy with where eBay was going and pointed. This is an incredible company. The danger with working here as long as I’ve been here. The probably is not a category I haven’t shopped or collected in and I’ve got bins of NASCAR I-PASS, PDR buckles, comics, fortune magazines, all these like crazy things. First purchase was in 2001. Got 1,211 feedback. Before I left was Top Rated Seller. Griff trying to goad me a couple times into committing to be a Top Rated Seller again and the truth is, the bar is even higher now then it was when I left but I really love eBay. What brought me back to eBay was as I’m sure many of you know, like all this stuff going on here and not all of it’s like up into the right in terms of sales and if you sell in different categories, you probably felt that. But man, there’s so much potential. Amazon and Walmart are amazing. They are going toe-to-toe and the retail apocalypse that you’ve probably seen in your towns and everything that’s going on that’s going to continue. Like the truth is, you know we’ve had over 10,000 brick and mortar stores close year to date in the US. Most of it is like not to scale regional semi national chains that just can’t source at the cost of what Walmart and Amazon can do. And yet for me, like what’s so amazing is like the more time I spent at Walmart, the more it gave me strength and conviction around all the things I love about eBay. Cause that isn’t us. That isn’t what makes up all the amazing categories. And Amazon sells apparel, Walmart does apparel. You sell apparel. What you’re selling is not what Amazon and Walmart are sourcing by the boatload. I mean, I came back, we’re talking about, you know, okay, well how many TVs we’re selling on daily deals. On black Friday, Walmart is literally selling 10,000 TVs per second. Under what scenario are we going to be able to source with our sellers in selling new in-box 32 inch TV at a lower cost then Walmart and Amazon? Like, that’s crazy. But we become obsessed as a company about trying to be someone that we were not. And then I think when you go in and look at the categories where we actually have these amazing enthusiast groups on the site and it’s everything from parts to comics, to collectibles, a lot of tropical plants on eBay. And then I don’t think anyone in the room sells lady bugs but there is a great lady bug seller in California that I buy from. Cause they keep all of the Aphids and bugs off my Palm trees. All of that, that’s eBay. And so when I kind of, you know, came back and was excited to do, like if it can be mirrored across 5,000 stores, if it can be mirrored across hundreds of fulfillment centers, let Amazon and Walmart go at it. And then what does that leave for us? A whole lot of GMV, a whole lot sales. We first started having this conversation, like this is a little bit crazy, but if you do the math and you say, okay look like new in season retail, apparel, TVs, all that stuff, ignore that. And then you want to focus on all the categories that are awesome for eBay, Clearance, shelf pulls, and minus one, refurbished, used. There’s actually more total market volume there than there is in what’s going on in the Amazon, Walmart world. And then, you know, the reality is those segments are growing as fast or faster than the spaces Amazon has been playing. We just kind of weren’t paying attention. So there’s all these startups and competitors playing in space that actually should be eBays. It shouldn’t even exist. They shouldn’t have gotten started, we kind of let that happen. All of that is kind of this roundabout way of me sort of describing like, you know why I came back. Why I think there’s so much opportunity here. And we’ve got tenured sellers, we’ve got people in the room that have run businesses and left. We’ve got people that just, long time sellers on the platform and probably one of those common questions I get after like “why did you actually come back”, is like kinda like, you know, “give us a reason to believe.” Cause a lot of headlines show how fast everyone else is growing. And when I look inside and look where we have potential, like man, there’s um, there’s a lot of upside. But uh, I don’t think we’ve actually give ourselves permission to recognize what is the magic that is eBay. And so how are we going to start to differentiate our experience? Like I joke, you know, for those of you who are Top Rated Seller, you can probably describe requirements better than I can. Zero-day handling two day shipping. And one of the things I’m kind of joking on is well, like two days is either infinitely too fast or is 1.9 days too slow. People now are just like, what? I’m not going to get it for free same day? Uh, and so like that’s not really a logical competitive edge for us. And yet I don’t think when you’re finding like the perfect IT, the hard to find part, like these things, you don’t need to get zero handling and have it show up in two days, like you found the product at the right price. And so then I’m going like, well why are we asking sellers to jump through these hoops that buyers actually don’t even want in that category? Doesn’t make any sense. From my side on the business angle, a lot more focus on how we’re going to make it more relevant retail standards. What are the categories in which you sell? If you are selling collectibles and comics, you know what? Some categories like actually no returns is the standard return policy. How do we think about actually changing what the shipping times need to look like? And it’s not about the constant guard railing. Are we solving for buyers or are we solving for sellers? When I talk to buyers in these categories, none of these things are surprising for them. Like they don’t have an expectation of getting two days shipping or getting returns in these categories. And so I don’t think running a market place means somebody has to lose in the transaction. Like we can actually create that balance.
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Big wall of text 🙂
I think he’s saying that eBay is forcing eBay sellers to match Amazon/Walmart retail standards (fast shipping, long return windows) even though many of us sell different kinds of products. You cant compare selling a brand new TV with a vintage, rare comic.
eBay should embrace its funkiness and not push long time sellers out by squeezing a round peg into a square hole.
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Jay, I think that’s exactly it. I think he left ebay because he disagreed with the direction it was going, and he has come back because he thinks ebay needs to realize it has lost the Amazon War but can still win the Mercari/Poshmark War if it can change course. In short, ebay should be THE place to go for used, reconditioned, last season, oddball stuff…..which is what many os us have been saying for years. If you read the Q&A, he seems to be pretty clear that he thinks “no returns” is actually industry standard for some of the types of things we sell, not 30 day free returns.
Of course, a wild card in all this is the “Activist investors”. Do they share his viewpoint? Or are they just waiting to unload the Classifieds so they can then unload ebay itself?
The thing is, and I think he is pretty candid about this, it has taken ebay a long time to lose its mojo, and it will take a while to get it back. (If it’s not already too late).
I do think if ebay goes all in , and revamps not just things like return policies and shipping times, but also its marketing, etc, it could be very good for scavenger sellers. But how long will the window of opportunity remain open? Hard to say.
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…look at the categories where we actually have these amazing enthusiast groups on the site and it’s everything from parts to comics, to collectibles, a lot of tropical plants on eBay. And then I don’t think anyone in the room sells lady bugs
I am so glad he is talking about FUNKY eBay. For me, there is no other eBay.
…why are we asking sellers to jump through these hoops that buyers actually don’t even want in that category?
Yes, more of this, please.
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This is my first time listening to their podcast, I am just curious how much is actually lip service. At one point it reminded me of my old job and when we had company meetings. The upper management/supervisors would be all pumped talking about the “exciting new changes” and we all knew it was a load of BS.
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littleBlueHouse,
I don’t think this is lip service. (Which doesn’t mean I think Jordan will be able to implement everything he’d like….he answers to the CEO, and the CEO answers to the Board.) But here’s why I think this is something more than lip service. Jordan worked at ebay for a number of years before leaving to go to WalMart. Reading between the lines, I think he left because he was tired of banging his head against the wall, trying to convince his superiors that ebay’s focus on competing with Amazon was precisely the wrong way to go. The sort of things he’s talking about now? These are things he wanted ebay to do years ago, but ebay wouldn’t listen and he left. That he is now back, and in a position to (hopefully) implement some of this tells me that at least some on the Board agree with him. When he says:
“And then you want to focus on all the categories that are awesome for eBay, Clearance, shelf pulls, and minus one, refurbished, used. There’s actually more total market volume there than there is in what’s going on in the Amazon, Walmart world. And then, you know, the reality is those segments are growing as fast or faster than the spaces Amazon has been playing. We just kind of weren’t paying attention. So there’s all these startups and competitors playing in space that actually should be eBays. It shouldn’t even exist. They shouldn’t have gotten started, we kind of let that happen.”
He’s basically saying, “if they had listened to me before, we wouldn’t be dealing with Poshmark, Mercari and the rest of them because we would OWN that part of the ecommerce market….they would never have gotten a start.”
So I really think he’s sincere, and I think , like all of us, he may be worried that whatever he does may be too little too late. But I think he’d really love to PROVE that he was right all along….that ebay should not be an Amazon Also Ran, but it should be THE place to go for the clearance stuff, the used stuff, the second hand and refurbished. Our kind of stuff.
Just my opinion, but I think ebay finally has someone who sees what ebay SHOULD be, and who will work to get it there. But then, maybe I’m just a cockeyed optimist.
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I could certainly hear the frustration, but that was where I wasn’t sure if it was real or smoke. I have only been in business for a few months so I didn’t know he was with eBay before. If he said so in the podcast I missed it. I have to say, I bet it was a very satisfying feeling when they called him back.
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Ryanne, Exactly. If ebay had listened to Jordan when he was working there the first time, ebay would probably be in a much better position than it is today. In the Q&A to the podcast (if I remember correctly) Jordan makes it pretty clear that he would love to be moving faster, but he’s right about the current ebay reality: ebay the company is focused on selling off the Classifieds (and just recently announced they are looking to sell off the ebay Korea site as well.) And then there’s Managed Payments….this is the year when that will be pushed out to most all sellers, and that is clearly taking a lot of ebay resources. So, I think we can expect some changes that should have happened years ago (he mentioned a real vacation setting, for example) but some of the bigger changes probably won’t arrive until next year. I’m hoping ebay can hang in there long enough to implement bigger changes.
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