Publications

15 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

A New Model for Business: The Museum

future research, please consider the following questions, and share your thoughts in the comments section: What are the benefits and the pitfalls of a firm taking on the role of curator in its marketing functions? What are some e-commerce... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

09 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

Warring Algorithms Could Be Driving Up Consumer Prices

to all personal care products sold online by the five firms implies that customers spent an additional $300 million annually as a result of pricing algorithms, out of a total of about $6 billion in e-commerce revenue for the category.... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail

03 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Why Fierce Competitors Apple and Amazon Became ’Frenemies’ Over eReaders

e-books through its own iBooks app, so why would [Apple] ever say yes?" Such questions intrigued Zhu, whose research covers competitive strategy and innovation in high-tech industries. Along with Ron Adner of Dartmouth and Jianqing Chen... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Information; Publishing; Technology

January 2018
Supplement

Jumia Nigeria PowerPoint Supplement

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Marketplace; Inventory; Nigeria; Africa; Ecommerce; Funding; Business Ecosystems; Business Ecosystem; Competition; Business Model; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Expansion; Logistics; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India; Nigeria; Africa

January 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Teaching Note

Jumia Nigeria: from Retail to Marketplace (A) and (B)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Karen Elterman

Founded in 2012, Jumia Nigeria, a startup effort by Germany-based Rocket Internet, aimed to become an African Amazon. The company entered the nascent market and immediately enjoyed an uptick in consumer spending fueled by the strength of Nigeria’s oil-based economy. By... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Marketplace; Inventory; Ecommerce; Funding; Business Ecosystems; Competition; Business Model; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Expansion; Logistics; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India; Nigeria; Africa

November 2013
Article

Adding Bricks to Clicks: On the Role of Physical Stores in a World of Online Shopping

By: Jill Avery, Thomas Steenburgh, John A. Deighton and Mary Caravella

Buying a product has never been easier. Consumers can shop online, over the phone or via mail order, from home or on the go, and if they want to experience touch and feel, they can also visit a "real" store. Often, one and the same retailer offers several of these... View Details

Keywords: Channel Management; Retailing; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States

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December 2016
Case

thredUP: Think Secondhand First

By: Thomas Eisenmann, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga

In the fall of 2016, the management team at thredUP, the largest U.S. online retailer of second hand clothing, is deciding whether to expand into international markets. Over the past 12 months the 7-year-old startup, which had raised over $130 million in venture... View Details

Keywords: Scaling Start-ups; International Expansion; Online Consignment; Apparel; Internet and the Web; Expansion; Entrepreneurship; Global Strategy; Business Startups; E-commerce; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; San Francisco

March 2018
Supplement

Chewy.com (B)

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble

Cohen and Chewy’s other board members decided to fully insource order fulfilment and commenced building an order fulfilment center near its 3PL partner’s facility. As soon as the 3PL learned that Chewy would be managing its own order fulfillment; however, it decided to... View Details

Keywords: Pet Food; Pet Products; Retail; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Operations; Decision Choices and Conditions; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Service Industry

12 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 12, 2006

Boeing's e-Enabled Advantage Harvard Business School Case 807-011 Examines Boeing's new strategy of offering services to regain market dominance and help its struggling airline customers improve efficiency and profitability. Purchase this... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

January 2020 (Revised April 2020)
Teaching Note

Brandless: Disrupting Consumer Packaged Goods

By: Jill Avery

Brandless, an online direct-to-consumer seller of upscale private-label consumer packaged goods (CPG), offered consumers a limited assortment of values-conscious products delivered directly to their homes with the simplicity of one fixed $3.00 price point that promised... View Details

Keywords: Brand; Brand Management; DTC; Private Label; Groceries; Packaged Food; Personal Care; Startups; Retailing; Amazon; Brands and Branding; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Business Startups; Disruption; E-commerce; Consumer Products Industry; Retail Industry; United States

19 Oct 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Are Web Sites So Confusing?

search, the 11th objective search result might be more relevant than any of the sponsored search results displayed on the right; yet it will be displayed on the second search page only—well beyond the reach of most users. Most e-commerce... View Details

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Bruno Jullien

30 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 30

the price of capital across countries. This strategy is motivated by the fact that most countries import the bulk of machinery equipment from a small number of industrialized countries. We find the price of imported capital goods to be... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Jan 2017
First Look

January 3, 2017

MyTime Ethan Anderson, the CEO of San Francisco–based e-commerce company MyTime, must decide on the company's growth strategy. MyTime’s first product was a website and mobile app that offered consumers a convenient way to book... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

January 2017
Case

Expanding Ecommerce at Technos

By: Thales Teixeira, Rohit Deshpandé, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi

Technos was the market leader in the Brazilian watch market. Its CEO had made a firm commitment to evolve the company’s marketing and commercial practices by focusing less on pushing product to retail clients and more on branding to end consumers to pull watches from... View Details

15 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

Amazon Prime Day: The Logic Behind a Retailer’s Made-up Holiday

huge motivation to try something like this." Amazon is not the first to try launching its own shopping holiday. Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba manufactured its own event in 2009 with "Singles Day," which takes place on... View Details

Keywords: Re: Sunil Gupta; Retail

July 2019 (Revised November 2019)
Case

Osaro: Picking the Best Path

By: William R. Kerr, James Palano and Bastiane Huang

The founder of Osaro saw the potential of deep reinforcement learning to allow robots to be applied to new applications. Osaro targeted warehousing, already a dynamic industry for robotics and automation, for its initial product—a system which would allow robotic arms... View Details

2024
Case

EPCorp: Convincing the C-Suite

By: Jacob M. Cook

In EPCorp: Convincing the C-Suite, Shivani Bahl is attempting to sell EPCorp's CEO, Debbie Sullivan, on her ideas for not only a new website upgrade but also a more expansive vision on how data and Generative AI can be used to grow the company. Debbie is understandably... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; E-commerce; Growth and Development Strategy

June 2016
Teaching Note

Relating to Peapod

By: Jill Avery and Susan Fournier

This case concerns the topics of relationship marketing, customer acquisition and retention, brand loyalty, service failure and recovery, new product introduction, and the use of consumer ethnography to study consumer behavior. Specifically, the case explores the... View Details

Keywords: Brand Management; Customer Relationship Management; CRM; Customer Behavior; Consumer Behavior; Retailing; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Channels; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States