eBay VP Blair Ethington Departs As Seller Leadership Questions Return
eBay is losing VP Buyer, Seller & C2C Blair Ethington, who announced Friday that September 18 is her last day after nearly four years in her second stint at the company.
Ethington shared the news in a LinkedIn post thanking the teams and partners she worked with, but did not say what she plans to do next.
Ethington had been listed as a participant in a senior leadership Q&A at eBay Open UK just two days before announcing her departure. The description for eBay’s official livestream named Ethington alongside Oliver Klinck, Eve Williams and Ashish Chhabra, but Ethington did not appear in the session. CEO Jamie Iannone joined the panel instead, despite not being listed in the video description.
This was Ethington's second tour at eBay. She previously worked as a Senior Product Manager from 2006 to 2010 before moving on to roles at CrowdStar, Sam's Club and Meta, then returned in January 2023 to lead Focus Categories and Buyer Experience.
Liz Morton
Ethington's remit expanded considerably over the last year. According to her LinkedIn profile, she moved from VP Focus Categories & Buyer Experience to VP Buyer Experience, Live Shopping & Community in July 2025, then took on the broader VP Buyer, Seller & C2C title in November.
The addition of "Seller" to Ethington's title came after Xiaodi Zhang, who returned to eBay in 2022 as VP Seller Experience, shifted into the VP Global C2C role. Zhang had overseen an organization responsible for seller inventory management tools, shipping, messages, stores and feedback, with her Seller Experience leadership team covering many of the tools and products used by sellers across the marketplace.
That move left no obvious direct replacement for the broader VP Seller Experience position just as eBay ramped up its renewed focus on consumer-to-consumer selling. VAR raised questions earlier this year about what that meant for business sellers as eBay poured more resources into C2C, Live shopping and acquisitions like Tise and Depop.
Liz Morton
Ethington's November 2025 role change appears to have picked up at least part of that gap. eBay itself was still publicly describing her as the VP for buyer, seller and C2C in an interview about recommerce, AI and product development.
Meanwhile, Zhang remains heavily focused on eBay's C2C strategy, including the Tise and Depop acquisitions, while the company continues expanding initiatives aimed at casual and consumer sellers.
That strategy has also made eBay's longtime claim that it does not compete with its own sellers increasingly difficult to square with the company's actions. Zhang herself said in 2023 that eBay was unique because "we never compete with our sellers," and eBay still makes essentially the same claim on its corporate website today.
But eBay is now using prime homepage and search placement to direct fashion buyers from its marketplace to Depop, giving the eBay-owned platform visibility that third-party sellers typically have to pay for through advertising.
Liz Morton
Ethington had also become increasingly involved in several high-profile product initiatives, promoting eBay's AI-powered Magical Listing experience for new sellers, eBay Live expansion and other product changes intended to make buying and selling easier. Earlier this year, she called the new Magical Listing flow "the best selling experience" and encouraged people to create new accounts to try it.
Her departure once again leaves questions about how eBay plans to divide those responsibilities going forward, particularly the "Business Seller" piece of the Buyer, Seller & C2C portfolio she has led since last November.
eBay has not responded to a request for comment as of publication.
