John Donahoe Quotes - a Year in Review
With the 2008 holiday selling season at our collective doorstep, we need to decide if we are going to go forward with our wagons hitched to eBay.
Rather than reading what I think though, look over the past year of quotes from eBay's fearless leader, CEO, John Donahoe. I invite you to choose your favorites, and add any actual quotes that I missed. Make sure to read all the way to the end...
September 27, 2007 – Legg Mason Capitol Management Thought Leader Forum By using a real focus on the customer, we embarked on a series of fundamental changes that will ultimately span a three year period. We started by creating a future vision. This was critical because not everyone felt the impetus to change, given the amount of success we were experiencing. There's a real push to keep doing what you're doing because it's working.
--
We have such volume that many of our buyers said that there was too much abundance. They just want to buy a Nike watch and instead they get 12,000 results back. That's too many. They want to get to what they want, faster. We agreed.
--
Based on our experience, here's how innovation at the core worked. We had to create a mind shift at our company-we had to think bold and not just incremental. We had to create a vision of the future so people could let go of a very successful past.
--
We talk and listen to customers, but for this kind of innovation, customers don't always know what they want.
December 18, 2007 – Silicon Valley Insider "A year ago, we had 14 per cent of global e-commerce, we're the largest e-commerce provider, and our home page still looks like a flea market," he says. "The world around us had changed. In particular our buyers' experience hadn't kept up."
January 24, 2008 – NYTimes - “Today our buyers tell us that we know you have unmatched selection, but we can’t always find what we want and find values as fast as we want,” Mr. Donahoe said.
--
“There is a lot of talk about Google’s relevance-based search,” he said referring to Google’s system of showing ads based on how often users click on them. eBay can use more information to provide better results, he said.“On eBay we have data about what people actually purchased and bought. As we begin to capture and use that data, we believe we can provide the most relevant search experience that takes that inventory we have and delivers it to a buyer so they have good choice.”
--
“There definitely will be those that are concerned or upset about these changes,” he said. “Our clear belief is what’s good for buyers is good for sellers, and is good for eBay.
January 25, 2008 – CCTV.com - eBay will weed out fixed-priced merchandise that's "not well priced" by providing it "less and less exposure", Donahoe said.
February 3, 2008 - from an AuctionBytes interview on eBay changes - "we have modeled out, if all sellers took their 2007 volumes and put it through the new pricing, the majority of sellers have lower fees.
--Furthermore we feel that the lower upfront fees and the other changes we made to improve the buyer experience is going to lead to higher conversion, so we think in 2008, all the sellers will have better growth and in essence, lower fees or a lower take rate.
--our analysis shows that one of the major reasons sellers or buyers buy less on eBay is they don't feel great about the shipping fees after the fact. So that's a challenge we have to jointly face with our sellers.
--So we have a very clear priority and focus in the coming year to improve the buyers experience on eBay because we think that's good for our sellers and that is good for eBay. And so we put the words out there, we are backing up our words with action, and yes, is there going to be some noise along the way? There is. Are we are going have to engage with our sellers about different dimensions of that? We are. Absolutely. The good news is all of a sudden there is a lot of attention on shipping and how we are going to end up having our buyers feel good about the shipping on eBay.
--
The incentive for sellers to stay on eBay is that they are continuing to sell great volumes on eBay. This is so, again, we had the largest number of traffic in the 4th quarter.
February 4, 2008 - TheStreet.com - "We need to redo our playbook, we need to redo it fast and we need to take bold actions," Donahoe said at the conference. Now it's up to the sellers to take the ball and run with it.
February 6, 2008 "We're going to get very aggressive about making eBay easier and safer to use. The Net has evolved dramatically in recent years. Buyers have become accustomed to streamlined purchasing experiences that put a premium on speed, convenience and reliability. While we have made strides in these areas, I am clear that we need to do much more." – Knowledge@Wharton
March 3, 2008 – USA Today - "My commitment is to build from (eBay's) strengths and make the changes necessary in this competitive environment," Donahoe, a former Bain & Co. consultant, said in a conference call in January. "eBay's best days are ahead."
April 17, 2008 - CNNMoney.com - "As we expected, some of the announcements generated a lot of passion from our community," Donahoe said - "We stayed the course on the changes that we believe are critical for the overall health of the marketplace and the long-term success of our community of users."
April 21, 2008 – Arkansas Democrat Gazette - Donahoe said it is not the company’s intent to discriminate against small sellers. But, he said, “where large and small sellers are trying to cut corners and not provide a good buying experience, we are making less room for them in the marketplace.” Donahoe outlined some more changes to the site. In Australia, the company is testing a program that requires sellers accept only PayPal payments. Donahoe said that if the test were successful, the company would roll it out in other countries “in months, not years.”
July 17, 2008 – International Herald Tribune - "When you have 84 million active users, any time you make a change, someone is going to be upset," Donahoe said in a call with analysts and investors. "But we listen and we incorporate their feedback with what we believe is best for the collective good of the marketplace."
October 6, 2008 - Yahoo! Tech News - "While never an easy decision to make, these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth," eBay president and chief executive John Donahoe said in a statement.
The move will create a "nimbler and more efficient organization," Donahoe said during a conference call. It will "impact most parts of our company" but will result in approximately $150 million in savings starting next year, he said.
October 17, 2008 – CNNMoney.com - "We do see buyers moving toward sellers with higher ratings. However, this has not yet translated into buyers increasing their overall purchases on eBay," Donahoe said during eBay's earnings call. "Our current GMV trend is not where we would like it to be, but we remain confident that the improvements we are making will ultimately move the needle."
-
"Buyers are increasingly buying from the highest rated sellers and buying less - in fact, they have stopped buying - from lower rated sellers," Donahoe said
October 17, 2008 – San Jose Mercury News - eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe told analysts this probably would be a grim holiday quarter for the company. "These are turbulent times for which no one has the perfect playbook," Donahoe said, according to a Merc report.
October 20, 2008 - theStreet.com - On a conference call detailing the Bill Me Later deal, eBay CEO John Donahoe said he’s confident the company is on the right path.
Popularity: 15% [?]
{ 3 trackbacks }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Q: Assuming you get to a stage where you have a great search engine, what’s the rational for having insertion fees at all?
A: Donahoe – Insertion fees have created quality at eBay – it motivates sellers to price well and put things on eBay they want to sell. This gives eBay a fresh set of inventory every 7 days and that makes eBay unique.
Q: What are you doing to accelerate eBay?
A: Donahue-We are driving more changes than ever. There are no silver bullets, we’re testing in different geos, when we find things that work, we’ll do more of them and less of the ones that don’t.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/78501-interview-with-ebay-ceo-and-cfo-at-goldman-conference
Whine Seller,
Those were my thoughts exactly when I first started reading!
I’ve got a quote for everyone who cares about honesty and integrity on ebay:
“Ebay Stockholders and Sellers Calling For Immediate Termination of John Donohoe CEO”
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?jdonohoe&1
I missed this when it was current.
A pertinent quote is:
“January 25, 2008 – CCTV.com – eBay will weed out fixed-priced merchandise that’s “not well priced” by providing it “less and less exposure”, Donahoe said.”
How many other business tools are designed to intentionally drive down the prices and profitiablility of their paying customers? I have said elsewhere in the latter half of this year that it appears that Ebay wants to be known as the cheapest online discounter, without actually carrying the merchandise that they discount. This business model is pretty much unsustainable.
Kevin