Walmart said its e-commerce guru Marc Lore – who many analysts say has helped the retail giant compete more effectively with Amazon in recent years – is leaving the company in late January.
The executive vice president and chief executive of the US e-commerce division notified Walmart on Jan. 31 of “his intention to retire,” the company said in a legal filing Friday.
According to Gordon Haskett analyst Chuck Grom, Lore is leaving Walmart to focus on Remarkable Foods, one of six startups he founded over the past year and “whose mantra is decentralized living.” A number of executives who helped Lore found Quidsi – the parent company of Diapers.com, which he sold to Amazon for $ 500 million in 2010.
“Given his entrepreneurial background. . . it was more a matter of ‘when’ he decided to leave than ‘if’ and based on our contacts in the digital space, he doesn’t leave for a competitor, ”Grom said in a Friday note to customers.
In a blog post, Doug McMillon, Walmart’s Chief Executive, noted that Lore is moving into an advisory role nine months before his employment contract was due to expire.
“Marc has committed himself to us for at least five years, which I know seemed like a long time for an entrepreneur like him,” said McMillon. “Now that our structural changes are over, we have concluded that it is time for Marc to step out of his day-to-day role… Marc’s expertise and aggressiveness are groundbreaking. We learned a lot from him. I personally learned a lot from him. “
In a LinkedIn post on Friday, Lore said he looks forward to “providing advice and ideas in the future… I am taking some time off and plan to continue working with several startups. Excited to keep you all updated on what’s to come. “
Lore joined Walmart in 2016 after the retailer bought Jet.com, the hip e-commerce company that Lore founded in 2014, for $ 3.3 billion – an eye-catching figure at the time that signaled Walmart’s plans to take Amazon more aggressively. to grab.
But Jet.com, which sold everything from clothes to groceries and targeted city dwellers, closed last year after Walmart collapsed it into its e-commerce division so that it was no longer a standalone business.
“In recent years, we’ve united our retail and e-commerce teams, helping us create a single brand experience for our customers,” Walmart said in a statement. “That was completed in 2020, so our Walmart US segment is active and continues to operate as an omnichannel company.”
When Jet.com started to falter and moved into Walmart’s e-commerce division, industry experts speculated that Lore wouldn’t stay with Walmart.
An entrepreneur at heart who founded several companies before Jet.com, including Diapers.com’s parent company, Quidsi, Lore was not seen as a cultural fit with Walmart.
Walmart said Lore will remain in an advisory role as a strategic advisor to the company until September 2021.
“Under Mr. Lore’s leadership, Walmart pursued an aggressive and ultimately successful e-commerce strategy consisting of multiple acquisitions, most notably grocery pick-up,” wrote Quo Vadis Capital retail analyst John Zolidis. “We view Mr. Lore’s departure as a step-by-step negative as it removes a visionary and entrepreneurial manager from the company.”