Manager, Customer Activation Strategy

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Context

Vehicles are uniquely suited to eBay’s platform, and in the early 2000’s vehicles especially were a major growth driver for eBay. eBay formed the “eBay Motors” sub-brand and business team during this period. The magnitude of vehicles Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) on eBay became so big that it was making it hard for management to clearly communicate to investors what else was going on in the business. All those vehicle transactions were also attracting vertically tailored competitors. And these two factors together – the scale of vehicles GMV and the threat from competitors – led eBay to carve vehicles GMV apart from the rest of the business reporting in 2007 and stop reporting it altogether in 2013. With this pull-back in focus, the vehicle's portion of eBay Motors came under pressure.

Through the next decade, eBay overall and eBay Motors specifically went through many changes. By 2020, competitors in many of eBay’s “enthusiast” categories were chipping away at eBay’s historically dominant position by creating vertically tailored customer experiences. In response, eBay developed a “focused category” strategy to optimize the selling and buying experience in select “focus categories”, starting with high-end watches, handbags, and collectible sneakers, plus trading cards, and soon automotive parts. In the subsequent 5 years, eBay saw phenomenal growth off the investments in these focus category experiences and other platform wide investments in payments, advertising, and the overall customer experience. The market for online vehicles sales also saw growth, as enthusiast-tailored marketplaces followed a similar competitive playbook to threaten eBay’s historical dominance in the core enthusiast portion of the vehicle's market. This period also saw state DMVs and other automotive services providers such as financing, insurance, and transportation, become more online enabled. Software businesses emerged to take advantage of this changing landscape to address key customer needs of Trust and Convenience. In early 2024, eBay Motors started a partnership with Caramel, a software business that created a safe and easy checkout experience for used car transactions, helping customers navigate the complicated sale or buying process and offering buyers access to financing, transportation services, insurance, and safe and easy payment options. In late 2024, after seeing success integrating Caramel to serve its enthusiast vehicles customers, eBay began further investing in transforming the Vehicles portion of eBay Motors, consistent with the focused category investments it has made in other areas. In January of 2025, eBay announced that it entered an agreement to acquire Caramel, an acquisition that is likely to close in Q1.

The role

eBay is seeking a Strategy Manager to join our growing Customer Activation team and lead a range of initiatives to grow eBay’s US Vehicles business and scale adoption of our Caramel’s end-to-end among eBay C2C sellers and buyers. The Program Manager will lead initiatives cross-functionally across business, marketing, product, customer service, and other key teams within eBay to deliver against key operational and financial objectives.

Responsibilities:

• Partner with business, product, customer service, and other teams to drive progress against milestones for key strategic initiatives
• Build and own executive-ready presentations on strategy and operational updates
• Drive operational consistency and alignment across the business and various functions
• Establish processes and guardrails to ensure operational success
• Identify and execute against opportunities across the US Vehicles landscape that require strategic deep dives

Qualifications:

• 5 years of related experience, including 2 years at a top-tier management consulting firm, investment bank, or in a strategy & planning role at a major corporation. MBA or equivalent experience preferred but not required.
• Demonstrated ability to project manage a group of peers and lead through influence
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to tell a compelling story backed by data
• Comfort using data to make decisions with imperfect information where there is ambiguity and a need to meet deliverables and drive initiatives to completion within specified timelines.
• High degree of ownership and commitment to results
• Self-motivated to find opportunities and challenges in the business
• Track record of strategic leadership, structured thinking, and ability to prioritize against multiple initiatives
• Organized problem solver who balances attention to detail with efficiency
• Ambition to grow professionally and willingness to work hard, learn/adapt, and provide feedback both upward and to peer teams
• Personal passion for eBay & eBay Motors. Passion for the enthusiast vehicles space is not required; however, candidate must be willing and able to quickly learn about and embrace the vehicles enthusiast community. Candidate must have a strong desire to meet customers and help eBay win!
• Candidate must be willing to work in person a minimum of 3 days per week, along with occasional travel.

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