Marc Lore, the e-commerce entrepreneur who led the Walmart Inc. counterattack. against Amazon. com Inc., is leaving the retail giant after much of its online operations have been absorbed by the rest of its business.
Lore, who founded Jet.com and joined Walmart in 2016 after buying his startup, pushed the brick-and-mortar giant to increase its online offerings, including the incorporation of more inventory centers and web distribution.
But in recent years many of its oversight areas had been combined with Walmart store operations. Walmart shut down Jet.com to focus on Walmart.com, and its executives and e-commerce teams reported to the head of Walmart’s U.S. stores.
Walmart said Mr. Lore, its head of U.S. e-commerce, will retire on Jan. 31 and remain a consultant until September. The company said it unified its store and e-commerce operations in the United States in 2020. Following Mr. Lore’s departure, the business will continue to report to John Furner, the company’s U.S. executive director.
“I think we had a five-year plan on what we wanted to achieve and I think we largely did exactly what we set out to do,” Lore said in an interview. “The hope was that at that time we would converge e-commerce and stores into a single omni organization and have a leader.”