eBay In Person: Leigh Goldstein
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Leigh standing with the car he bought on eBay Motors |
Leigh is a Senior Manager in charge of improving Shipping initiatives at eBay. Leigh has been with eBay for more than three years.
When did you start at eBay and what did you do before?
I graduated from Michigan Business School in 2001, and before coming to eBay in 2002, my experience was mostly in international and business development roles, including working for a Japanese firm based in New York City, and consulting in Vietnam.
In 2002, I met with Gary Dillabough, VP of Strategic Partnerships at eBay and was immediately interested in the business development role of helping eBay sellers with shipping. I always was attracted to eBay's business model and was pleased to hear more about the mission of enabling sellers and commerce all over the world. I started at eBay in the summer of 2002.
What are your responsibilities?
Improving shipping is a key priority for Bill Cobb, President, eBay North America. “I want to do for shipping what PayPal did for payments,” he is fond of saying. As a result, shipping is one of eBay's main areas of focus in 2005. My role is to develop product strategies to integrate shipping tools into the flow of eBay transactions, making the transaction easier from the shipping perspective—both for the seller and for the buyer.
I work with Product Management and Product Development teams at eBay and PayPal to help turn our ideas on improving shipping into actual eBay products that members can use. I'm also deeply involved in communicating and marketing our shipping initiatives to our members.
Can you describe some shipping initiatives currently in development?
A key shipping initiative that we're working on is to help sellers communicate their shipping costs better. This involves displaying shipping costs in search results, so that buyers can get better insights into an item’s total value before clicking into View Item. Our goal is to have 100% of sellers list their shipping costs. Currently it's at about 80%.
Another project we're working on is enhancing our label printing feature to better address the needs of high-volume sellers. We're also looking to expand the label-printing capability to other sites in addition to the US, such as eBay Canada and eBay UK.
Describe some of the challenges in making shipping easier for eBay members.
Well, it's always hard to build tools on eBay that suit every seller's needs. We have to build features that will appeal to the broadest possible base across the Community, while recognizing that every seller has their own individual way of managing shipping on the site. For instance, sellers have different ways of calculating shipping costs. With a limited set of resources we can't build tools for every seller. We know some sellers want more complex ways of offering shipping discounts to buyers and we are working to accommodate as many of those requests as possible.
Another challenge involves coordination. Shipping initiatives at eBay often involve many “moving parts” and making sure they are synched up with each other is essential to the overall success. Typically, shipping initiatives involve several eBay teams such as Product Management and Product Development, as well as our external partners, such as USPS, UPS and Pitney Bowes.
How do you get input from members on improving shipping?
As with other projects at eBay, we involve Community members at various stages of development. We do this in several ways, such as calls with members of the Voices program (we recently had a call to discuss “excessive” shipping), local site visits to sellers' homes and offices, and surveys.
A great venue for us to meet eBay sellers in person are the eBay Days at the USPS. Our relationship with the United States Postal Service (USPS) is a natural extension of eBay's marketing and
educational reach. It also helps the USPS understand eBay members' needs better.
What do you like about working at eBay?
I'd like to mention the two big positives for me personally, about working at eBay. First, as a business model, we're always entering new territory, which compels everyone here to think in strategic terms. It's a stimulating environment.
Second, while working on products, I've realized how we at eBay are in a position to positively affect sellers' lives. For example, I was heavily involved in the USPS label-printing project that launched in February 2004. Since then, over 40 million labels have been printed. I continue to be amazed at the positive impact it has had on sellers, their lives and businesses – in terms of saving time or saving a trip to the Post Office.
It's always satisfying to see an idea progress from the vision stage to the implementation stage—the pace of eBay is such that this journey takes as little as eight months.
What skills have you found yourself utilizing most in your career at eBay?
- First, strategic thinking – the ability to envision something and get it to reality.
- Second, creative thinking – coming up with ideas for products that appeal to the broadest segment of our Community.
- Third, the ability to build strategic partnerships – whether it's with USPS, Pitney Bowes, UPS, or with internal eBay teams.
What do you buy or sell on eBay?
I fuel several of my hobbies through buying on eBay. I'm a big fan of jazz and funk, and recently I bought some Miles Davis CDs on the site. I also buy books. My favorite authors include Graham Greene, Tim O'Brien, and Paul Theroux. As an avid snowboarder and mountain biker, I'm always looking for equipment and accessories in the Sporting Goods category. I've also found great deals on electronic items like digital cameras.
One of the most memorable items I bought on eBay was a Napoleon Dynamite poster. I thought it was a regular movie poster, but then realized it was a version used before the movie's release. This was the poster that street teams had put up in Ogden, Utah before the film's release. I realized that I'd got my hands on a fairly rare collectible.
As for selling, I haven't sold as much as I'd like to, but the one item I remember vividly is an old cell phone that I managed to sell. I explained in the listing that it was barely working, and was more than a little surprised when it actually sold! My feedback is currently at 78.
What's the most memorable item that you've bought or sold on eBay?
For the longest time I used to drive my old 1994 Volkswagen Passat. By last year it had 152,000 miles on it, and every day I was adding on a hundred more, during the long commute from San Francisco, where I live, to San Jose, where eBay is located, and back. Well, one day the starter failed. This was around the time when I was helping establish the eBay-USPS relationship, so I didn't have any time to take the car into the shop. So for two months, I continued to drive my old car, needing to open the hood every time to start it. This was a source of great merriment in my team.
When I finally decided to buy another car, I looked no further than eBay Motors. I was looking for a 2001 Audi A4, and one listing caught my eye. It was a 10-day auction-style listing with a rather low Buy It Now price. I found the listing on the first day. I called the seller, who was located in Florida, to ask why the Buy It Now price was so low. He told me there wasn't much demand for four-wheel drive vehicles in Florida. “Well, there is in California. I'll take it,” I responded. I hung up the phone, purchased the car using Buy It Now, and told my manager that I'd just bought a car on eBay. His response was, “It's about time.”
What do you like to do for fun?
I like to attend live music events in San Francisco and Berkeley. On weekends I like to go snowboarding near Lake Tahoe, a few hours' drive away. I also like mountain biking.
One activity that I look forward to each year is international travel. In 1994-95 I spent seven months backpacking through South-East Asia. I haven't been able to get away for such a long period since then, but I do try to take an international trip once a year. My last trip was to Belize, in South America. I'm now planning a trip to Argentina. I love these trips, not only because they help me see remote places and connect with people from all over, but also because they help me better understand the integration challenges of creating a global eBay Community.
What's the most rewarding part of working at eBay?
One of the most rewarding parts of working here is witnessing how eBay is revolutionizing the way business is conducted, as well as changing people's lives for the better. I'm truly amazed at the fact that everyone at eBay has the ability to contribute positively to this change.
Something I value about myself and in others is integrity. And when you have hundreds of thousands of sellers around the world who depend on you for their livelihood, eBay needs to have, and does, the integrity to do the right thing by them. That's another reason why it's rewarding to work here.
