eBay is closing its R&D center in Israel at the beginning of next year. The eBay Israel R&D center website boasts of its prowess in cutting-edge technology that eBay uses to power innovative (or “magical,” in eBay parlance) tools for buyers and sellers:
“The Applied Research group at eBay Israel R&D center explores and provides solutions for deeply complex problems by conducting research in areas of Data Science, Machine Learning, NLP, Recommendation Systems, Information Retrieval, and Computer Vision. We work closely with the engineering and product teams to bring state of the art technology to production environments. The group focuses on a variety of topics, all with a deep impact on eBay’s core business. For example, using ML to make eBay’s data more structured, generating high quality content for eBay’s catalog, offering intelligent pricing suggestions, and guiding sellers on how to bid on eBay’s promoted listings.”
It’s unclear who will pick up the slack as the R&D center winds down. In reporting on the closure on Wednesday, Globes included the following statement from eBay: “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to close our office in Israel during the first quarter of 2026. We are committed to continuing to provide support and accompany our employees throughout the transition process. As a global company, eBay is continuously evaluating its operating model in line with its long-term strategic goals, and in order to optimize support for customers and employees.”
eBay Israel’s leading R&D center is a leader in research, development, and innovation spanning seller and buyer experiences; “eBay is leading the industry in the fields of machine learning, AI, NLP, entity recognition, taxonomy management, and more,” according to the eBay Israel website.
In 2018, Israeli news site Globes pegged the number of eBay employees based in its development center in Netanya, Israel, at 330.
In 2023, another news site Calcalist reported that eBay had laid off in February “dozens of employees at eBay’s R&D center in Israel, which was set up in 2005 following the acquisition of shopping.com for $620 million” and reported eBay was laying off another 20-25 workers in December 2023 out of 250 Israeli employees.
Globes said that last year, many employees had expressed concern about a closure “due to the war and eBay’s weakening against its rival Amazon.”
In a “goodbye” post on LinkedIn, eBay wrote, “Our center in Israel, which has been operating for two decades, a place that grew up with us and has become an integral part of many amazing people, is about to end its journey. Over the years, we have developed groundbreaking technology here, innovative research, connected people, learned, changed, and still managed to maintain the magic that every Abie employee knows.” It also invited employees and others to “share a memory, a kind word, or best wishes for our employees who are soon embarking on a new path.”