New Walmart e-commerce exec leaves to take the helm at eBay

Dive Brief:

EBay Inc. on Monday announced that Jamie Iannone, only recently appointed Walmart’s e-commerce chief operating officer, will be eBay's chief executive officer, effective April 27. He will also be a member of the board, according to a company press release.
Before taking on the leadership role in e-commerce at Walmart in March, Iannone led e-commerce at the retail giant’s Sam’s Club warehouse business. He had worked for Walmart since 2014, arriving from Barnes & Noble.
The move is a return to eBay for Iannone, who previously worked there as a vice president and in other leadership roles from 2001 to 2009, per the release. He replaces Scott Schenkel, eBay CFO, who had been serving in the top post on an interim basis after Devin Wenig’s departure last September.

Dive Insight:

EBay has interrupted the rearrangements Walmart made in its e-commerce division by stealing away an executive who had agreed to bring the skills he demonstrated at Sam's Club over to the parent company.

Walmart's e-commerce may seem like it's in turmoil, in light of its sell-off, shut down or shrinking of some of the e-commerce ventures it had acquired or devised only a few years ago (including ModCloth, Jet Black and Jet). But Walmart U.S. e-commerce chief Marc Lore remains at the helm. Iannone was reporting to him and John Furner, CEO of Walmart U.S., presumably to aid in the ongoing integration of the retail giant's digital and physical sales.

It's eBay that could use the help. The e-commerce giant has struggled in the shadow of Amazon's Marketplace, despite efforts to speed up delivery and improve its site. That has led the company to seek to capitalize on its well-performing ticket and classifieds businesses and to boost revenue through advertising.

The superior performance of those units hasn't been able to stem overall declines. In its most recent quarter, eBay revenue fell 2% to $2.8 billion and gross merchandise volume fell 5% to $23.3 billion. Its active buyers base grew by 2% across platforms, for a total of 183 million globally, according to a January press release.