Walmart said its e-commerce guru Marc Lore – who many analysts believe 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 of “its intention to step down” by Jan. 31, the company said in a regulatory filing Friday.
According to Gordon Haskett analyst Chuck Grom, Lore is leaving Walmart to focus on Remarkable Foods, one of six startups she has created in the past year and “whose mantra is decentralized life.” A number of executives who helped Lore found Quidsi – the father of Diapers.com, whom he sold to Amazon in 2010 for $ 500 million.
“Given his entrepreneurial experience. . . it was more a matter of “when” he decided to leave than “if” and based on our contacts in the digital space he does not leave for a competitor, “Grom said in a note to customers on Friday.
In a blog post, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon mentioned that Lore is moving into a consulting role nine months before her employment contract expires.
“Marc has committed to being with us for at least five years, which I know he felt great about for an entrepreneur like him,” McMillon said. “With our structural changes behind us, we have come to the conclusion that it is time for Marc to move from his daily role … Marc’s expertise and aggression have changed the game. I learned a lot from him. I personally learned a lot from him. ”
On Friday, in a post on LinkedIn, Lore said that she is looking forward to “offering advice and ideas in the future … I will take some free time and I intend to continue working with more start-ups. Excited to keep you all up to date with what’s coming. “
Lore joined Walmart after the retailer bought in 2016 Jet.com, the e-school company Lore founded in 2014, for $ 3.3 billion – an appealing figure at the time that signaled Walmart’s plans to get Amazon more aggressive.
But Jet.com, which sold everything from clothing to food and was intended for urban residents, was shut down last year after Walmart split it into its e-commerce division, so it was no longer a independent company.
“Over the past few years, we’ve unified our e-commerce stores and teams, enabling us to create a brand experience for our customers,” Walmart said in a statement. “This was completed in 2020 and so our US Walmart segment has operated and continues to operate as an omnichannel business.”
As Jet.com began to falter and was subsumed by Walmart’s e-commerce division, industry experts speculated that Lore would not stay at Walmart.
An entrepreneur who founded several companies before Jet.com, including Diapers.com’s father, Quidsi, Lore was not seen as a cultural match with Walmart.
Walmart said Lore will continue as a consultant to the company’s strategic advisor until September 2021.
“Under Mr. Lore’s leadership, Walmart has pursued an aggressive and ultimately successful e-commerce strategy, consisting of multiple purchases, especially picking up food,” wrote retail analyst John Zolidis of Quo Vadis Capital. “We believe that Mr. Lore’s departure is a negative thing in the sense that it eliminates a visionary and entrepreneurial executive from the company.”