If it’s the holiday season, it’s crunch time for any self-respecting online merchant. But for some, the stakes are higher than others.
A few years ago, eBay was getting battered by the likes of Amazon.com and was dismissed as an auctions has-been. Its technology was long in the tooth. And it was losing its iconic CEO, Meg Whitman, whose political ambitions led to a run for California governor this year.
Now eBay is betting its future on whipping its technology into shape as it navigates the limp recovery and red-hot competition from rival Amazon and hundreds of smaller, specialized retail sites.
The biggest marketplace on the Web — eBay has 93 million active users — is going all in on mobile shopping, a booming market that is projected to top $119 billion by 2015.
“I look through the eyes of the customer,” says the affable CEO, John Donahoe, a commanding presence at 6-foot-5. “As a company, we needed to be more customer-driven and technology-driven.”
The four-year eBay veteran, named to succeed Whitman as chief executive in early 2008, has been on a nearly three-year quest to infuse the Silicon Valley icon with new technology, including:
*Buffing up the site’s e-commerce technology.
*Expanding eBay’s mobile capability.
*Opening up PayPal, eBay’s online payment service, to developers for new applications, which has helped continue its dominance.
*Orchestrating a series of acquisitions that reinvigorated the online auction pioneer.
He also audaciously moved to pick the brains of rivals on how to improve customer service — people such as Tony Hsieh, CEO of shoe and apparel e-tailer Zappos.com, and Ron Johnson, who oversees the Apple Store chain.
“EBay had enjoyed enormous success, but the environment around us was changing, and buyers and sellers have higher expectations,” says Donahoe, an ardent eBay shopper who typically is first to sign up for beta tests of new eBay products…