eBay CEO: ‘The world doesn’t need an almost-as-good Amazon’
“I’d rather have a billion unique items that arrive in three days than a billion commodity items that arrive in an hour.”
EBay isn’t just where you order a used cellphone anymore, at least according to company CEO Devin Wenig. In fact, used item sales are making up a small and declining part of the eBay business. It’s all about perception, Wenig said onstage at the Code Conference, and eBay isn’t just an auction site anymore. But it’s also not trying to be Amazon.
“That’s why we sell $90 billion worth of stuff a year,” Wenig said. “I think there’s an idea that I need to be like Amazon. I don’t. The world doesn’t need an almost-as-good Amazon. They need a better eBay.”
“I’d rather have a billion unique items that arrive in three days than a billion commodity items that arrive in an hour,” he said. “That’s our business and that’s why we’re unique.”
Basically, Wenig said, if you’re running low on toilet paper and need it in under an hour you can head over to Amazon.
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
