Retail fashion veteran Miriam Lahage is moving from EBay’s US office to head its European fashion business.

Lahage takes the role of European general manager after five months spent developing its US fashion business. She has nearly 25 years of retail fashion experience. She worked at value retailer TJX for 20 years before launching Koodos, the UK online discount boutique for designer brands, which she sold to E-Trader in 2009.

She has recently worked as a consultant with Net-a-Porter to develop its discount site Outnet.

Fashion emerged as eBay’s most successful category in its fourth quarter results. The etailer is keen to bolster its position in apparel and last week completed the acquisition of German site brands4friends. Last year eBay launched its Fashion Outlet in the UK.

EBay Europe vice-president Clare Gilmartin said: “As our fashion business strategy evolves, we realised the need for someone like Miriam to lead our business in Europe at this exciting time.

“There is still huge potential for growth in the online fashion market and her extensive retail experience and entrepreneurial vision for fashion ecommerce will be instrumental in leading this growing part of the business from strength to strength.”