OT: Meg Whitman Former CEO

[scgaynor]

I think that Meg tried alot of things when in charge. A number of them were positive and worked to make ebay a great place to sell but it is also true that she set in motion some ideas that have not worked for ebay. The question is would Meg have stuck with those ideas when it was clear they were not working, or would she continue with them like the current CEO. Impossible to tell, but I think that she had far more business sense and didn't completely rely on focus groups and consultants that don't anything about selling on ebay like the current brass. Can anybody think of one good decision that was made after Meg left?

In my opinion, what is killing ebay is how they treat sellers. When Meg was in charge, the philosophy was that all sellers were equal, it didn't matter if you were Walmart or a single mom working out of your basement. Every seller had the same opportunity to make a buck. They didn't play with the search standings, offer discounts to volume sellers, and put all of the power into the hands of the buyer.

It just seems that when Meg was in charge, ebay was a leader, now they are just trying to play catch-up. Their problems are self inflicted. What they should do is offer "Ebay Classic" as a separate platform that is only auctions with none of the annoying aspects of current ebay. Turn back the clock to 2004 and put those policies back into place. In bad economic times Ebay should be thriving, not dying.

Scott