eBay CEO Jamie Iannone Says He’s “Always Listening” As Seller Engagement Shrinks
eBay CEO Jamie Iannone is once again talking up the importance of feedback from employees and sellers, telling Fast Company that listening to people inside the company and customers using the marketplace has shaped his leadership approach since taking the job in 2020.
Iannone reinforced that message in a LinkedIn post promoting the interview Tuesday, saying some of the best ideas come from “simply listening to the people closest to the work.” He said that when he returned to eBay he spent significant time talking with leaders, employees, buyers and sellers about where the company was falling short and what they needed from it.
“A lot has changed since then, but that habit hasn’t,” Iannone wrote. “Whether I’m at an eBay Open, visiting one of our offices or just talking with sellers, I’m always listening for feedback.”
Before becoming CEO, Iannone wrote a 10-page white paper for eBay’s board laying out his ideas for reviving the marketplace while the company was under pressure from activist investors. Fast Company says he then spoke with every top leader at eBay and asked what needed to change, what needed to stay the same and what they hoped he would do as CEO.
Iannone says those conversations gave him a better understanding of how to carry out his strategy and evolve eBay’s culture. “If you can find it inside them, most companies have the answer,” he said.
On seller feedback, Iannone recalled sitting next to two handbag sellers at a dinner several years ago who complained that eBay’s 12-photo listing limit made it difficult to show buyers all the details they wanted to see on vintage bags.
eBay later doubled the limit to 24 images, which Iannone pointed to as evidence of what can happen when the company listens to its users. “If you listen to your community, they’ll have all kinds of good ideas for what you need to do in this business,” he told Fast Company.
But that change happened in 2022. In the years since, eBay has steadily reduced many of the public channels sellers once used to engage directly with company employees.
Iannone recently made his first appearance at eBay Open UK since returning as CEO in 2020. During the leadership Q&A, he repeatedly emphasized seller feedback and said eBay tries to involve sellers throughout product development rather than waiting until something launches to find out what they think. He pointed to weekly reports from UK leadership, seller clinics and groups brought in under confidentiality agreements before product launches such as eBay Live.
Liz Morton
Lately, some of the most direct engagement with eBay sellers has come from GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen, who has made a ~$56 billion bid to buy the company.
Fast Company itself brings GameStop into the story, noting that eBay’s board rejected the company’s unsolicited takeover proposal earlier this year and describing that decision as a show of support for Iannone’s strategy.
Cohen has spent part of the months since taking his case directly to eBay shareholders as well as sellers, sitting for lengthy interviews with reseller content creators and taking questions about fees, advertising, customer service and what he would change if GameStop ever took control of the company.
Liz Morton
In May, Cohen spent about 45 minutes talking with eBay seller, YouTuber and Flipwise co-founder Justin Glow. When Glow asked how he would determine which ideas actually make sense for sellers, Cohen responded: “you’re plugged in with the seller community, tell me what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense.”
Cohen later sat down with reseller Ryan Roots as well, while both Roots and Glow have said they offered Iannone similar opportunities without receiving a response.
Iannone did make an unexpected appearance on seller podcast Behind The Listings at eBay Open UK, but dropped in at the end for about five minutes to deliver canned responses rather than sitting down for the kind of free-flowing interview Cohen has been willing to do.
Iannone was talking about a “tighter feedback loop” with sellers as far back as eBay Open 2021, while other executives promised the company would listen, consider and respond. But the mostly pre-recorded event itself offered limited opportunity for that kind of engagement, and eBay did not initially make clear that many of the presentations were not live. Sellers in the event chat appeared to expect executives to be actively participating, while comments were also disabled on Iannone’s keynote replay and many other videos on eBay’s official YouTube channel.
One of the few places sellers could regularly ask eBay employees questions in public was the weekly Community chat. That was scaled back to a monthly format and discontinued altogether in the US in 2024, while eBay Council, originally promoted as a “two-way conversation” with buyers and sellers, had comments and much of its social interaction removed later that year even as eBay said the changes would help it focus on “listening to you even more.” The remaining weekly chats in the UK and Germany were ended earlier this year, again with eBay citing community feedback.
Official participation in the forums has also declined as eBay has leaned more heavily on volunteer Mentors and seller-led events. Some Mentors receive advance information about updates and policy changes to help answer Community questions, but that access comes with confidentiality requirements that have created friction with other sellers. eBay is increasingly relying on selected sellers to act as intermediaries as direct participation from company employees declines.
Liz Morton
Iannone has also repeatedly said eBay does not compete with its sellers. In a 2024 interview with longtime seller Linda Lightman for his Accidental Entrepreneur LinkedIn series, he said, “I always like to say we don't compete with our sellers at eBay. We're only successful if our sellers are successful.”
Lightman has since moved her business to Poshmark after the company acquired part of Linda’s Stuff to revamp its own consignment program.
Less than a month after closing its $1.4 billion acquisition of Depop, eBay began giving the resale platform prominent homepage and top-of-search placement, sending shoppers off eBay to complete purchases there. That has eBay using its own marketplace visibility to send fashion buyers to a competing marketplace it owns, while eBay sellers pay for similar placement through ads and are barred from steering buyers offsite.
Liz Morton
Fast Company also ties Iannone’s feedback philosophy to employees, saying his conversations with senior leaders helped him understand how to change eBay’s culture. Former Chief Architect Randy Shoup has described a much less flattering picture.
Shoup returned to eBay in 2020 and helped lead the Velocity engineering initiative. Iannone highlighted the work at company all-hands meetings and Shoup presented it to eBay’s board, but Shoup says the technical gains did little to change what he described as a zero-sum “Game of Thrones” culture where employees who raised problems could become targets.
Shoup said his own departure followed clashes with a longtime VP after he raised concerns about delays on a major rearchitecture project. He also alleged the VP threatened high-performing employees with bad reviews if they tried to transfer and personally approved every deployment made by an organization of roughly 700 employees and contractors for an entire year.
Liz Morton
He isn’t the only former employee to allege retaliation during Iannone’s tenure. Former Senior Technical Product Manager Amanda Bartolotta sued eBay alleging harassment, discrimination and retaliation after reporting concerns through Employee Relations and Ethics, while Paige Williams filed a separate whistleblower and retaliation suit involving discrimination, internal complaints and concerns about Promoted Listings metrics.
eBay has disputed allegations in both cases, and Williams’ suit was later dismissed without prejudice after she stopped participating in the litigation.
Employee relations at eBay-owned TCGPlayer have been contentious as well. Workers voted to form eBay’s first US union in 2023, followed by more than two years of unfair labor practice charges alleging surveillance, coercion, retaliation, benefit changes and bad-faith bargaining. The union later accused eBay of union-busting when it closed the Syracuse authentication center, laid off more than 200 workers and moved the operations to Kentucky.
Liz Morton
eBay General Manager of B2C Omar Soudodi says Iannone often tells employees, “eBay is an open book. Talk to the buyers and sellers, they’ll tell you where the opportunities are.” Sellers have been asking for that conversation for years, and they’re still waiting.
