eBay UK taps former Asos brand director as new general manager

E-commerce giant eBay has announced the promotion of Eve Williams as new vice president and general manager of its UK business.

Williams joined eBay UK in December 2020 as chief marketing officer (CMO), during which time she oversaw several important initiatives, including eBay’s pre-loved fashion partnership with Love Island, and the launch of brand platform ‘The eBay Way’.

Prior to joining eBay, Williams spent seven years at UK fashion giant Asos, most recently serving as global brand director where she was credited with overseeing marketing and customer programmes, as well as creative strategy, content planning, consumer communications, and social media output.

She succeeds Murray Lambell, who has been general manager of eBay UK since 2020, and who has been promoted to global general manager of the company’s home, garden, and refurbished categories based at eBay’s European headquarters in Bern, Switzerland.

“I feel incredibly privileged to step up to this role at an exciting moment in eBay’s 28-year history,” Williams said in a statement.

She continued: “In the UK, millions of people use our platform to buy and sell everyday, while hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country use eBay to reach millions of customers across all our key categories whether that’s car parts, accessories, homewares, preloved fashion or refurbished tech.”

eBay hones in on fashion resale

Founded in the US in 1995, eBay was one of the earliest established online resale platforms, and in recent years has increasingly focused on the fast-growing and lucrative market of second-hand fashion and footwear.

This year alone, eBay has invested in UK-based luxury resale platform Cudoni; relaunched its popular ‘pre-loved’ fashion partnership with ITV reality TV show Love Island; and opened a “first-of-its-kind” sneaker swap shop in London.

So William’s experience in fashion will likely play an important role as the company competes with other competitors in the red-hot resale space, like Depop, Vestiaire Collective, and The RealReal.

Jordan Sweetnam, senior vice president for global markets at eBay, described Williams as “the ideal candidate for the job”.

He said she brings “a wealth of cross-functional experience to the UK leadership role, including as UK CMO where she transformed the way we understand and engage British customers”.