eBay have appointed Tanya Lawler to a new role as Vice President of UK Trading. Previously Director of Direct Channels at Sainsbury’s Tanya will join eBay in the Autumn.
Tanya’s remit will be to develop eBay’s customer strategy and drive growth in eBay’s retail brand business and business seller partnerships, which include Superdry, Bench, House of Fraser, LK Bennett and Comet, as well as to help recruit further high street brands to the eBay marketplace. She will report directly to Clare Gilmartin, VP Marketplaces UK & Rest of Europe with the Buyer, Enterprise Sales and Marketing functions reporting in to her.
This means Tanya will be directly responsible for driving buyer activity on the site, all Enterprise account recruitment and eBay’s marketing focus (which we guess includes TV, Print and online). That mean pretty much anything that impacts retailing on eBay bar seller functions will ultimately be down to Tanya to get right.
eBay Partner, but never compete, with UK retail industry
Welcoming Tanya to eBay Clare Gilmartin said “eBay is a very different business to the one that launched in the UK over ten years ago. Most items sold on eBay are now sold new and at a fixed price, and the UK is one of eBay’s fastest growing European markets. Our strategy is to partner, but never compete, with the UK retail industry. In her new role, Tanya will help us ensure that the business and experience of shopping on eBay continues to evolve to meet the demands of the modern shopper”.
Tanya has a fairly impressive resume which prior to Sainsbury’s includes Group Commercial Director at Argos, and VP of Retail at Capgemini. She should also be well placed to handle the marketing side of her new role having worked in the media & telecommuncations sectors as both an Executive Producer and a Television Director.
4 Responses
I have never understood why ebay deem they need people to “drive growth”.
Ebay used to stand by itself with people seemingly happy to sell and happy to buy on the auction site.
Ebay want to be amazon and have seemingly focussed attention to the big players who just want to use ebay to sell off their excess stock (ie fashion(last years clothes).
Once ebay focussed on best match, DSR’s etc ebay asumed that all buyers need their hands holding and all sellers needed beating with a stick as they continually shrunk the carrott.
I sold on ebay because it was fun, it made me a bit of spare change. Now it feels like I am being forced to jump through hoops all the time whilst blindfoled while ebay continually change the size of the hoops and occasionally set them on fire.
I have nearly given up on ebay, sales are slow, sellers know how to okay the system that ebay have created that has more holes in it than a seive.
It’s a strange situation, always having been a champion of women in business and keenly feeling the overwhelming need for a less blokish approach to commerce, to think this.
But considering several recent hires (see also the new fashionatrix), and knowing Clare Gilmartin reasonably well, I’m struck by sameness.
The Stepford Management Team?