There’s an interview and video with eBay’s Paul Todd available that you might be interested in watching.
Todd is the senior vice president of eBay EMEA leading operations in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, as well emerging high-growth markets including Turkey. Paul also holds a global role leading eBay’s marketing worldwide.
We’ve posted the video below and here’s the link to the written interview.
With eBay in its first month as a single entity, it’s time to start piecing together the clues of where it’s going and what the plans are. We don’t have a clear view yet.
The one thing I will say I’m impressed with his is comment regarding literature: “I love literature, and even if I fall asleep after the first page, I find time to read every day. My favorite book is The Master of Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the 1930s in Russia and it’s about Satan visiting Moscow and the havoc that he creates in the process. It’s a protest against the regime that existed at the time and I think the inventiveness and creativity that came out of that incredibly stark environment is fascinating. Plus, it’s a really entertaining read.”
I’ve just ordered the book in question on Amazon because I always like a reading tip. It would seem the PR blurb is wrong. It’s called the Master and Margarita.
6 Responses
Talk talk talk!
Action and results are what we need
ebay ‘thats cool’…
Funny because the reaction I get from most people when I mention selling on ebay is very different. Maybe he only speaks to buyers but personally:
‘I used to sell but fees are too much’ -builder
‘I got kicked off for defects and sell on Asos instead’ -vintage clothes seller
‘Cant be doing with it, took me forever to get seller fees back for non paying buyers’ – luxury watch dealer
‘dont mention ebay. I’m not happy with them after I sold something and it got refunded’ – My hairdresser
I can’t bring myself to watch it, it’s no doubt the same buzzword nonsense as usual, but how ironic that you watch a video from someone at eBay that prompts you to buy something from Amazon.
(i need to rant and cant find anywhere else to slot this in, so in a bid to be slightly less off-topic) you can tell paul todd that ebay are becoming increasingly ‘special needs’ level of stupid since the paypal split. and insist upon inflicting their ignorance upon me.
we need to add 10,000 EAN’s, cos ebay says.
we try, but every one fails, cos ebay says.
my 5 door wardrobes fail because ebay says
“5 is not a valid number of doors”
my glass and chrome tables fail becase ebay says
“only 1 material may be listed” (glass and chrome used to be fine, now its glass OR chrome)
my kitchen and bathroom products fail cos ebay says
“multiple value detected for ‘room’, please specify one room only”. (again, used to be fine, not now)
10,000 manual updates to work around ebays stupidity? dont think so, no EANs it is.
– i’d rather pump my time into Amazon and our own websites, than waste days and days working around this bull.
this degree of moronity needs to stop, paul. seriously.
Master and Margarita’ is a good novel, but ‘Heart of a Dog’ by the same author is better IMO, and has some very interesting 1984esque touches which seem oddly appropriate when talking about Ebay and the way they handle their sellers these days.
“I’ve just ordered the book in question on Amazon”
That’s very amusing!