Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,068)
- Faculty Publications (422)
- September 2018
- Case
OYO: Creating Effective Spaces
By: Das Narayandas, Sunil Gupta, Rachna Tahilyani and Mahima Rao-Kachroo
Twenty-four-year old Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of India-based online hotel branding network OYO Rooms, has tackled the issue of unreliability in India's highly fragmented budget hotel industry. In 2018, OYO branded 8,500 properties across 200 cities and managed... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Opportunistic Returns and Dynamic Pricing: Empirical Evidence from Online Retailing in Emerging Markets
By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu
We investigate how dynamic pricing can lead to more product returns in the online retail industry. Using detailed sales data of more than two million transactions from the Indian online retail market, where price promotions are very common, we document two types of... View Details
- June 2018
- Case
The Grommet in 2018
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Karen Gordon Mills and Lena Goldberg
The Grommet, an online product launch platform, was at the brink of scaling its business. The Grommet's daily launch and sale of innovative consumer products, using personal videos created by product makers, had led to its initial success. In 2014, the company launched... View Details
- May 2018
- Case
Sagacity Tea: What Direction for Growth?
By: John A. Quelch and Amy Handlin
Kate Moran, CEO and cofounder of Sagacity Tea, a small, Vermont-based ready-to-drink tea brand, is considering a consumer-product group (CPG) broker's proposal for the product's launch in several cities along the East Coast of the United States. The commitments in the... View Details
- Article
Offline Showrooms in Omni-channel Retail: Demand and Operational Benefits
By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno
Omnichannel environments where customers shop online and offline at the same retailer are ubiquitous and are deployed by online-first and traditional retailers alike. We focus on the relatively understudied domain of online-first retailers and the engagement of a key... View Details
- Article
The Store Is Dead—Long Live the Store
By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno
In this article, we pursue two interconnected themes: the expansion of online-first retailers into offline stores that serve the purpose of “supercharging” customer value, and the transformation of the stores of offline-first retailers from... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised September 2019)
- Case
Chewy.com (A)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Matthew G. Preble
In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, faces a “bet the company decision”—whether to stay with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for all of its e-commerce fulfillment or to take the function in house. Cohen worries... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised July 2018)
- Case
Cadre
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Scott Duke Kominers and David Lane
Late in 2017, CEO Ryan Williams and his team debated whether Cadre should become not only a technology-enabled investment manager, but also an online trading exchange providing high levels of liquidity for investors in commercial real estate (CRE) equity. Cadre was a... View Details
- March 2018 (Revised July 2020)
- Case
Nectar (A)
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport and Thomas O. Jones
In late 2017, Nectar was a rapidly emerging player in the “bed-in-a-box” online market for direct-to-consumer foam memory mattresses. Barely a year old, it had achieved a revenue run rate of $85M and looked ahead to another year of blistering growth. The founding team... View Details
- March 2018
- Case
Lufax: FinTech and the Transformation of Wealth Management in China
By: Christopher J. Malloy, Lauren H. Cohen and Anthony K. Woo
This case examines the rise and competitive positioning of Lufax, an online marketplace headquartered in Shanghai, China, and a pioneer in the origination and trading of financial assets. The company had grown at a remarkable rate, and was awarded “Trading Platform of... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Montes Calcados: A Step Ahead
By: James L. Heskett and James T. Kindley
Montes Calçados (MC) is a well-known "fast-fashion" Brazilian manufacturer of casual, but fashionable, shoes for women aged 18–35 in major cities worldwide. To boost its declining revenues, MC must evaluate two growth options: whether to expand distribution online (at... View Details
- February 2018
- Article
Auctions versus Posted Prices in Online Markets
By: Liran Einav, Chiara Farronato, Jonathan Levin and Neel Sundaresan
Auctions were very popular in the early days of internet commerce, but today online sellers mostly use posted prices. We model the choice between auctions and posted prices as a trade-off between competitive price discovery and convenience. Evidence from eBay fits the... View Details
- January 2018
- Case
Peak Games: Hiring Priorities in Times of Rapid Growth (A)
By: William R. Kerr and Gamze Yucaoglu
Sidar Şahin, founder and CEO of Peak Games, a Turkey-based global mobile gaming company, must decide on the final list of candidates for the critical global marketing director position the company has been trying to fill for over a year. Since its founding in 2010,... View Details
Keywords: Recruiting; Staffing; Emergent Countries; Entrepreneurial Management; Private Sector; Business Strategy; Decision; Growth Management; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Selection and Staffing; Talent and Talent Management; Business Model; Growth and Development Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Value Creation; Organizational Culture; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technology Industry; Turkey
- January 2018 (Revised March 2020)
- Case
SAP: Branding in the Digital Age
By: Das Narayandas and Amram Migdal
By 2017, digital, social, and mobile technologies were rapidly changing the way many of SAP’s traditional customers did business over the last decade. In response to this trend, SAP had acquired companies with capabilities in e-commerce, human capital, workforce... View Details
- 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
- January–February 2018
- Article
Ads That Don't Overstep: How to Make Sure You Don't Take Personalization Too Far
By: Leslie John, Tami Kim and Kate Barasz
Data gathered on the web has vastly enhanced the capabilities of marketers. With people regularly sharing personal details online and internet cookies tracking every click, companies can now gain unprecedented insight into individual consumers and target them with... View Details
- December 2017 (Revised March 2019)
- Case
Armarium: Luxury Fashion Brands for Rent
By: Jill Avery, David Fubini, Natasha Dossa and Devon Stewart
Armarium, a two-sided online platform that offered consumers the opportunity to rent the most coveted, current season high fashion clothing and accessories from the top global luxury brands, had emerged from its first sales season with two distinct customer segments:... View Details
Keywords: Brand Management; Retailing; Sharing Economy; Luxury Brand; Ecommerce; Startup; Fashion; Brand Positioning; Customer Acquisition; Internet Marketing; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Business Startups; Luxury; Consumer Behavior; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Media; E-commerce; Fashion Industry; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States; North America
- January 2018
- Supplement
Jumia Nigeria PowerPoint Supplement
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
- November 2017 (Revised October 2018)
- Case
Brandless: Disrupting Consumer Packaged Goods
By: Jill Avery
Brandless, an online direct-to-consumer seller of upscale private-label consumer packaged goods, offered consumers a limited assortment of values-conscious products delivered directly to their homes with the simplicity of one fixed $3 price point that promised an... View Details
Keywords: Brand; Brand Management; Retailing; Retailing Industry; Private Label; Direct To Consumer Marketing; Ecommerce; Digital Marketing; Consumer Packaged Goods; Startup; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Disruption; Food; Product Marketing; Marketing Channels; Consumer Behavior; Brands and Branding; Venture Capital; E-commerce; Consumer Products Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; United States; North America
- October 2017
- Case
Shift Technologies, Inc.
By: Thomas Eisenmann and Nicole Tempest Keller
In 2017, management at Shift, an online marketplace that uses a “high touch,” concierge approach to buy and sell used cars, was formulating plans for the San Francisco–based startup’s next phase of expansion. One option was to preserve Shift’s current business model... View Details