eBay’s UK vice-president Rob Hattrell talks to Retail Week about visual search, fidget spinners and how content is driving sales.
Hattrell joined eBay a year ago – after stints as Tesco’s IT director and general merchandise boss – but, based on his enthusiasm for the role, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was his first week at the etail firm.
“It’s been awesome – eBay’s an incredible business and has a tonne of things going for it,” the father of four enthuses at the etailer’s UK head office in affluent Richmond, Surrey.
“It’s in the right sector in that it’s a pureplay, so there are plenty of structural advantages to the business and plenty of advantages for consumers too.”
He reels off facts about the business like a A-Level student who’s memorised a comprehensive crib sheet before a big exam – eBay sells a car part every second, a video game every eight and sales of flat-peak caps rise 350% when BBC drama Peaky Blinders is on.
“Pinning down exactly where we put our strategic investment in eBay is probably the hardest challenge”
Rob Hattrell, eBay
His zeal for the online marketplace is undeniable but it does present him with a new challenge, as someone who has previously worked for multichannel retailers.
“If you’re running a bricks-and-mortar business your head is genuinely full of other things because you are constantly troubled by the fundamental channel shift that is happening across retail,” he says.
“I don’t envy that and I don’t miss it but I have the utmost respect for those that are still wrestling with it because it’s an enormous challenge.
“Pinning down exactly where we put our strategic investment in eBay is probably the hardest challenge, whereas at Tesco your problems and complexities were more defined.”
Intelligent AI investment
For Hattrell, this “nice problem to have” has been resolved by a focus on driving forward the online marketplace’s AI capabilities.
Ebay is developing its visual image recognition and search technology and has also dabbled in voice commerce.
Hattrell “tends to agree” with eBay’s chief executive Devin Wenig, who said last year that retailers that “don’t have an AI strategy [are] going to die in the world that’s coming”.
But although he is adamant that the impact of AI on retail will be seismic, he doesn’t think there is one silver bullet that will singlehandedly up-end the sector.
“Tapping things into your smartphone will feel archaic one day, but voice won’t solely be responsible for that”
Rob Hattrell, eBay
“Tapping things into your smartphone will feel archaic one day, but voice won’t solely be responsible for that. It’s one of a pantheon of options but it feels like that’s just where the sector’s decided to focus next,” he says.
“I’m not diminishing it, but it’s only part of the answer.”
Hattrell explains that for eBay, image search is the primary focus because the products that they sell are more difficult to describe than voice would easily enable.
“Buying straightforward things like coat-hangers or batteries is one thing, but buying a pair of blue jeans doesn’t really work,” he says.
“There are limitations on what you can do with image and limitations of what you can do with voice, so it’s about joining all AI-powered capabilities together to give lots of different technologically enabled experiences in lots of different ways.”
“In the September before I joined there were 200 searches for fidget spinners on eBay in a month. By the end of the following April we were getting that many searches every two seconds”
Rob Hattrell, eBay
Hattrell also nods to the potential of AI to identify upcoming trends for retailers. He points to the recent craze for fidget spinners as an example.
“In the September before I joined there were 200 searches for fidget spinners on eBay in a month. By the end of the following April we were getting that many searches every two seconds,” he says.
“I guarantee that there’s no supply chain system in the world, none, that could have predicted that – but AI could have.”
A true marketplace
Technology aside, Hattrell maintains that eBay is still a deeply human business that enables customers to connect with each other, be it over a new dress or last season’s Yeezy trainers.
He says that this separates the online marketplace from rivals such as Amazon.
“I run a marketplace and I don’t compete with anyone on it. My job is to connect buyers and sellers, never to intervene or win for myself in the middle of that,” he says.
“We want businesses, brands and retailers to be on the platform and to do the thing they want to do in the way they want to do it”
Rob Hattrell, eBay
“We want businesses, brands and retailers to be on the platform and to do the thing they want to do in the way they want to do it.
“I don’t think that’s Amazon’s ambition, I think they want to computerise it all.”
Marrying digital innovation with a human touch is eBay’s USP, and an increasingly difficult balance to strike as technology becomes more central to all retailers’ strategies.
But if Hattrell’s sheer enthusiasm is anything to go by, it’s a retail tightrope that he plans to take in his stride.
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