Dive Brief:

• EBay Monday said that Bob Kupbens will lead its Business-to-Consumer team and serve as global initiative owner for seller experience, tasked with driving efforts to scale sellers’ businesses, optimize eBay’s B2C platform for merchant success, and help to acquire new sellers.

• Kupbens was previously Vice President of Online Retail at Apple, and left the computing giant in May to pursue other opportunities. In his two years at Apple he was responsible for the Apple Store app, Apple Store digital interactive experiences, and global retail customer service teams.

• The online marketplace retailer last month beat analysts' forecasts for the second straight quarter, and said its live listings eclipsed the one billion milestone for the first time. 

Dive Insight:

EBay appears to be on a roll, and Kupbens, widely seen as an effective executive who made good on Apple CEO Angela Ahrendts’s lofty goals, is a coup of a hire. 

Many observers predicted trouble for eBay when its PayPal payment unit spun off last year. But as eBay moves squarely from an auction-oriented site to more of a direct-sales, fixed-price marketplace competing directly with the likes of Amazon, the company has shown signs of new life. In fact, it is PayPal that has lost some of its lustre, with its recent agreement with Visa that some analysts said shows it’s less of an innovative disruptor and more of a more traditional payments company. 

EBay is now working to boost customer experience with new initiatives to require more and better product descriptions, improve search, and boost sellers support. 

Kupbens’s experience at Apple could further those initiatives at eBay, which puts the marketplace retailer increasingly in direct competition with Amazon’s Marketplace. EBay’s recent moves to boost its tech capabilities show that it’s serious about competing on Amazon's turf, although Senthil Padmanabhan, principal engineer at eBay, told Internet Retailer last month that the marketplace hasn’t yet determined how speeding things up on mobile will impact revenues.

“We are pleased to welcome Bob to the eBay family,” eBay SVP of North America Hal Lawton said in a statement. “We are focused on providing the most powerful selling platform and Bob’s customer-centric leadership will help us deliver the best possible experiences for our sellers and empower them in growing their businesses.”