Even as Apple poached on Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts to boost the performance of its retail stores, the technology giant had to bid farewell to its worldwide e-commerce director R.J. Pittman, who brings his expertise to eBay.
Pittman will fill the role of chief product officer for eBay's marketplaces business just in time to make a difference before the holiday shopping frenzy begins.
"To accelerate our commerce strategy, I'm excited to announce that RJ Pittman will be joining our Marketplaces business as Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Senior Vice President. In this newly created position, RJ will lead our Product organization and be responsible for creating world-class, end-to-end product experiences for more than 124 million active users and 25 million sellers," Devin Wenig, president of Marketplaces division, disclosed on the official company blog. Pittman, who will be responsible for enhancing the customer shopping experience on the website, will be reporting to Wenig.
"These changes represent an important step on our journey to becoming the global leader in commerce. I'm confident RJ's experience and leadership will help us continue to better serve our customers through amazing experiences - large or small, global or local, online or offline. And he will help us in our goal to ensure eBay is the best way to shop for the things you need and love anytime, anywhere and on any device," Wenig added.
The online retail company announced the coming of the new executive a day after releasing the forecast of their fourth quarter sales and profits. The figures are lower than the expected estimates of analysts. The last quarter of the year is crucial for the company given the shopping behavior of consumers during the holidays. The shares of eBay took a 6.2 percent dive after the disclosure of the forecast.
"I think it's pretty clear today eBay dominates the marketplace category. I'm excited to come in and reinvent the way people buy and sell. I loved what I was doing at Apple; it's a great company ... but eBay is on a completely different level by an order of magnitude when it comes to e-commerce," Pittman told AllThingsD in an interview.
Pittmann was responsible for commerce innovation, product management, and design of online stores when he was in Apple.
