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Kroger Names New Ecommerce Chief With Walmart and Jet.com Roots

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Kroger has named Nate Faust executive vice president and chief ecommerce officer, effective Sept. 1, Digital Commerce 360 reported. Faust is a Jet.com co-founder and former Walmart U.S. ecommerce supply-chain executive, and he is stepping into a grocer that the research firm ranks first in its Food & Beverage category. Operators should care because this is a C-suite seat over a business Digital Commerce 360 projects at $17.84 billion in online sales in 2026, arriving while last-mile grocery delivery is still getting more crowded.

What Digital Commerce 360 reported

Faust starts Sept. 1. The hire comes more than a year after Kroger stood up a dedicated ecommerce business unit, which had been run by the company’s chief digital officer. Digital Commerce 360 ranks Kroger No. 7 in its Top 2000 Database of North America’s largest online retailers by annual ecommerce sales, and No. 1 in Food & Beverage. The firm projects Kroger online sales of $17.84 billion in 2026. Kroger is also No. 508 in Digital Commerce 360’s AI Rankings.

Most recently, Faust founded and ran Olive, a logistics startup, and he has also worked as an investor and advisor. Before that, he was senior vice president for ecommerce supply chain operations at Walmart U.S. He arrived at Walmart when the retailer bought Jet.com, which he co-founded, in 2016. Earlier, he served on the executive team at Diapers.com.

Kroger CEO Greg Foran, who became CEO in February after his own Walmart tenure, said he was thrilled to welcome Faust to the Cincinnati-based company. Foran said Faust built businesses that reset customer expectations around speed, value, and receiving exactly what was ordered, and that this is the bar Kroger is setting as it grows digital. Faust pointed to Kroger’s customer relationships, loyalty data, and store footprint closer to shoppers. He said he could not pass up working with Foran again and improving the experience in a fast-growing part of the business. Their time at Walmart overlapped.

The appointment also lands after Kroger expanded work over the past year with last-mile partners DoorDash, Instacart, and Uber Eats, in what Digital Commerce 360 describes as a competitive landscape for online grocery sales.

What this means for online retailers

Digital Commerce 360’s reporting is national. The source does not include New York City sales figures, borough-level grocery share, or local delivery-penetration data. For NYC and U.S. online sellers, the signal is still useful: a top grocery retailer is putting a supply-chain and marketplace veteran in a C-level ecommerce role after creating a separate digital unit and after widening third-party delivery partnerships.

In a dense market like New York, that pattern usually shows up as more advertised speed, more delivery coverage, and more pressure on independent grocers, specialty food brands, and marketplace sellers who compete on convenience. When the No. 1 food-and-beverage web retailer talks about speed, value, and getting the order right, substitution rates, out-of-stocks, and last-mile reliability become the fight. NYC operators already deal with high delivery expectations and crowded Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats storefronts. A national grocer leaning harder into those same networks can change how platforms allocate attention, ads, and exclusive inventory.

The Walmart-to-Kroger talent path matters too. Faust and Foran both come from the same large-retailer ecosystem. That often means more operational discipline around fulfillment, not just a redesigned homepage. Independent sellers should not plan to out-feature a $17.84 billion grocery web business on checkout polish. They can still win on assortment, brand, neighborhood knowledge, and service a national chain cannot personalize in every ZIP code.

Practical takeaways for operators

  • Treat last-mile partners as a product. Kroger’s work with DoorDash, Instacart, and Uber Eats is a reminder that many grocery baskets now leave through someone else’s driver network. If you sell on those platforms, compare listings, photos, and in-stock rates with a well-run national grocer. If you fulfill yourself in the five boroughs, be explicit about windows and substitutions. Accuracy is part of the standard Foran described.
  • Watch loyalty data as a moat. Faust called out Kroger’s customer relationships and loyalty data. Independent NYC retailers rarely have that scale, but they can still capture repeat-purchase signals. Email, SMS, and simple reorder tools beat a one-off site visit. Marketplace sellers should treat the first-party customer data they do control as carefully as a grocer treats its loyalty file.
  • Compete on what a chain cannot copy quickly. Speed and value are table stakes for a retailer of Kroger’s size. Specialty brands and local operators can still differentiate with curated assortment, clearer product education, and fewer bad substitutions. If your category sits in a weekly grocery basket, assume national grocers will keep investing in digital leadership, not stepping back.
  • Read C-suite hires as an investment signal. A dedicated ecommerce unit plus a chief ecommerce officer with Jet.com, Walmart, and logistics-startup experience is a bet on fulfillment and experience, not a marketing campaign. Track how grocery delivery partners change coverage and fees in your market, then adjust your own delivery promise before shoppers do the comparison for you.

This article is educational and is not legal, tax, or financial advice.

If you run a New York online store and want to compare notes with other operators on grocery, marketplaces, and last-mile, get in touch with the New York eCommerce Forum.

Source: Digital Commerce 360, Kroger names new head of ecommerce with experience from Walmart and Jet.com.