The Man Behind Jet.Com; The Wall Street Journal Profiles Marc Lore

Marc Lore is the brains behind Jet.com, the retail e-commerce that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT acquired on Monday for $3.3 billion.

The Wall Street Journal profiled Lore on Monday following the acquisition announcement and quickly pointed out his plans to battle Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN "didn't pan out as he projected," but he will assume a senior leadership position at Wal-Mart.

Lore, a 45-year-old native of Staten Island, New York, is no stranger to e-commerce. He sold Diapers.com and Soap.com in 2010 for $550 million — ironically to Amazon, Wal-Mart's largest foe.

The Birth Of Quidsi

Diapers.com was created to fill a void that Lore recognized: delivering household goods quickly and reliably to busy mothers. Realizing the site had potential for success he created Soap.com. He combined Diapers.com and Soap.com into a company called Quidsi.

Related Link: Wal-Mart Confirms $3 Billion Deal For Jet.com

Prior to that, he created an online sports cards trading company called The Pit, which he sold to Topps Co. for around $5.7 million in 2001.

After Quidsi

Lore eventually sold Quidsi for roughly 10 times the amount of venture capital he raised after taking Amazon head on in a pricing war before deciding to sell the company and join its team.

"Marc is the most talented e-commerce operator I've come across," the Wall Street Journal quoted Jeremy Levine of Bessemer Venture Partners and investor in Quidsi as saying. "He has a deep, intuitive grasp of the finance side of things — that's something that most entrepreneurs don't have an eye for."

Lore left Amazon in 2013 after his contract expired and decided to take on his former employer through Jet.com which promised to deliver consumers prices that we as much as 15 percent cheaper than Amazon.

Lore felt that Jet.com would achieve profitability by 2020 when it delivers $20 billion worth of goods a year. However, the business struggled in its early days, and Lore scrapped an initial pledge not to charge an annual membership fee and offering smaller discounts compared to its competitors.

Nevertheless, Wal-Mart made it official on Monday that it will acquire the company for more than $3 billion — a notable premium over a round of financing last October which valued the company at just $1.35 billion.

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