eBags History -- Eliot Cobb

Eliot Cobb, is a former CFO with several companies and has broad experience with turnaround situations. He is a also a Co-Founder of eBags.com, the largest supplier of luggage and bags on the Internet, and, a profitable company. He is currently CEO and Founder of hitspot.com, a new social network.

eBags.com:

source: wikipedia.com

eBags.com, a division of eBags, Inc., is an American electronic commerce company founded in 1998. While the company has offices in Richmond, Virginia and Cambridge, UK, it is based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. The primary purpose of eBags.com is to be an online retailer of handbags, backpacks, business cases, urban bags, luggage, and travel accessories. eBags.com represents more than 350 brands. eBags, Inc. also owns and operates 6pm.com, formerly Shoedini.com, a high-end, fashion-forward electronic commerce shoe and bag site launched in November 2005. 6pm.com sells more than 200 brands of footwear and bags. In addition, eBags Inc. operates e-commerce websites for such partners as Tumi.com and CaseLogic.com.

Five people founded eBags in the late spring of 1998. Four of them worked for Samsonite prior to starting eBags. Collectively, they—Jon Nordmark, Peter Cobb, Frank Steed and Andy Youngs—worked more than 50 years at Samsonite, which was headquartered in Denver from 1910 through 1997. Eliot Cobb worked as VP of Finance at The Wherehouse, a 500 store music retailer.

For Samsonite, Jon Nordmark lead development of luggage, duffel and backpack products while managing about 20 different distribution channels in North America. In 1997-8, he performed similar duties for Samsonite South America. Nordmark helped build hardside and softside products in Asia, Europe and the U.S.

During his six years at Samsonite, Peter Cobb lead USA marketing for both Samsonite and American Tourister. This included marketing communications activities—often created in partnership with Chicago-based ad agency Leo Burnett—and new product development. Before that, Cobb developed golf bags for a Ben Hogan licensing company.

Frank Steed was president of both Samsonite and American Tourister, USA. He served as Chairman of eBags, Inc. until the summer of 2001. The final founder to join eBags from Samsonite was Andy Youngs. At Samsonite he served in both marketing and sales capacities.

Nordmark and Peter Cobb continue to work for eBags. Steed and Youngs left eBags during the downturn of the dot coms in the summer of 2001. Steed became president of a travel accessories company based in New York. Youngs joined Case Logic—a company that produces storage cases like PDA cases, iPod cases and CD cases—as their Vice President of Marketing.




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