Online auction giant Ebay is planning to cut off seven percent of its workforce or around 2,400 employees as part of a major shake-up that the company will be undertaking.
Sections of the business that will be affected by the lay-off would include enterprise businesses and Paypal sectors.
The company did not have a downfall in revenue last year. In fact, Ebay had a 10% increase in its fourth quarter income in 2014. The increase was largely due to Paypal payments.
But not everything went well for the auction giant last year, especially after users' sensitive data were compromised due to a hack attack. Information such as user passwords and contact details were stolen by the hackers.
Google Analytics also played a huge part in Ebay's fall in 2014. The change in search engine results page (SERP) made it difficult for the auction site to come up on top of searches.
Letting go of Paypal and creating a spin-off were not hush-hush decisions on Ebay's end.
The company has announced in June 2014 that it will spin-off Paypal by mid-2015. The decision was based largely on a suggestion made by investor Carl Icahn. This year, business owners and buyers using Ebay will start feeling the effect of the newly-found online payment avenue.
"[We] got to the same place Carl said early on," Ebay CEO John Donahoe said in an interview last year.
"We have some challenges. Our focus and operating discipline delivered solid company performance in a year that quite frankly we're glad to see come to an end," Donahoe said in a recent call with investors.
The advent of new payment systems such as Apple Pay has also served as a sign for Ebay executives and investors to take on a new road when it comes to consumer payment options. The Paypal Spin-off is one of the major changes Ebay has taken in the two decades it has been in business.
Paypal, one of the world's biggest online payment companies, was acquired by Ebay for $1.5 billion in July 2002. The payment outfit had been the main payment option for most auctioneers on the website.
