eBay fires product and tech team in India, except 15 moving to the US

US-based ecommerce giant eBay has just fired its product and tech team in India, except 15 who may be moving to the US. These were staff working out of eBay’s development center in Bangalore. Managing director of eBay India Latif Nathani confirmed the development to Tech in Asia but called it a “benching” rather than a “firing,” without revealing any other facts or figures.

“As a normal course of business, eBay regularly reviews its operational structure and today we announced some changes to our global product and technology team. As a result, we are reducing our overall technology workforce in Bangalore and shifting work to other global centers around the world,” eBay’s official spokesperson said.

“We remain committed to India and will continue to invest in core product and technology development for eBay India,” he added.

He did not disclose the exact number of employees affected. But said that eBay’s analytics team was intact.

eBay has been undergoing a major restructuring after its split from PayPal last year. eBay had acquired PayPal in 2002 for US$1.5 billion. Last year, it laid off 350 employees in India across both eBay marketplace and PayPal, which has software development centers in Chennai and Bangalore.

Existential crisis

eBay also developed tech services and products at its Bangalore center. Last year, 50 employees were fired from this center.

Apart from its split from PayPal, eBay also sold off its enterprise division which was in the business of building ecommerce websites for brick and mortar brands and retailers.

These moves are part of an existential crisis for eBay. Its marketplace, which originally was meant simply to connect buyers and sellers and hold auctions, has struggled to keep up with the broader ecommerce range of Amazon. It hopes to revamp its ecommerce play after the restructuring, with a closer connect to small retailers and millennial shoppers.

In India, the horizontal ecommerce marketplace scene is dominated by Flipkart and Amazon, with eBay figuring little in the picture. Even Flipkart has had a rough year, being forced to cut its discounts and spending, while seeing its valuation being cut drastically by investors.

(With contributions from Durba Ghosh.)

The headline of this article was changed to specify the team impacted by the layoffs.