e-commerce industry - Publications - Faculty & Research

10 Mar 2015
News

Women in Tech: Breaking the Digital Ceiling

fashion e-commerce company, Peach. It’s also a challenge to an industry where a company’s potential is often predicted based on its similarity to other successful ventures, most often led by CEOs who look a... View Details

Keywords: April White

April 2016
Teaching Note

Flipkart: Transitioning to a Marketplace Model

By: Sunil Gupta and Das Narayandas

In 2015, Sachin and Binny Bansal, co-founders of India's largest e-tailer, Flipkart, announced that the company would switch to a marketplace model and move its logistics arm into a separate company. At the time of the announcement, Snapdeal already claimed to be... View Details

Keywords: India; Marketplaces; Digital Platforms; Internet and the Web; Market Entry and Exit; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India

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01 Jun 2001
News

Point, Click, Give: Internet Fuels Philanthropic Fundraising Revolution

to “The e-Philanthropy Revolution,” a recent working paper by HBS professor James E. Austin. His study of more than 150 WEBSEs illuminates the dynamics, challenges, and strategies of this nascent industry that links potential donors to... View Details

Keywords: Anne Kavanagh; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information

01 Dec 2000
News

Vivek Ranadivé

provides the infrastructure (or"middleware") that makes e-commerce work across disparate computer systems. His meaning, however, is just the opposite.. "The concept of e-business will disappear because every business will be an... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; News, Library, Internet, and Other Services; Information; Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance; Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Telecommunications; Information; Air Transportation; Transportation

27 Sep 2021
News

Sewn with Love

began raising funds to support small businesses within the fashion and garment industries that pivoted their manufacturing to create personal protective equipment and partnered with The RealReal, an View Details

27 Aug 2019
Blog Post

Meet the PRIDE Club

Miami, Florida. Prior to HBS, she worked in digital and multicultural marketing across the consumer products and media industries. She will be transitioning to e-commerce management after HBS. When she's not immersed in the case method... View Details

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Women Leading Business: A New Kind of Conversation

which our faculty provide. EE: What is the typical profile of the group? Hart: The single defining characteristic of our participants is that they have achieved a position of extraordinary responsibility and recognition in their industry... View Details

Keywords: Re: Myra M. Hart & Cynthia A. Montgomery

August 2014
Case

Rent the Runway (Abridged)

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Brent Goldfarb and David A. Kirsch

Two months after a successful launch In November 2009, the cofounders of Rent the Runway (RTR), a website that rented designer dresses, are debating whether to grow their startup at a measured pace and focus on improving operational effectiveness, or raise a new round... View Details

Keywords: Lean Startup; Electronic Commerce; Fashion; Expansion; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Fashion Industry

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01 Apr 2001
News

Beyond Accommodation

of household chores because I couldn’t see.” By his junior year at Purdue, where he studied industrial engineering, his vision loss was complete, and Gibbons finally needed a cane to get around and readers to help with his studies.... View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley; AT&T; Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations; Personal Services

29 Jan 2025
Blog Post

Finding Professional Purpose: Building an Impactful Career that Reflects your Values with Lisa Tanzer (MBA 1993)

leadership, working my up to CMO, and then President and CEO roles. I worked on educational toys and entertainment properties (Hasbro), contributed to taking an early e-commerce company in the educational toy space through an IPO and... View Details

Article

Innovations in Retail Operations: Thirty Years of Lessons from Production and Operations Management

By: Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman

We review papers published in Production and Operations Management (POM) during its thirty-year history that deal with retail operations issues with an empirical approach. The papers span a range of issues, from traditional ones like forecasting and inventory... View Details

Keywords: RFID; Innovation and Invention; Technology Adoption; Operations; E-commerce; Strategy; Retail Industry

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15 Feb 2000
Lessons from the Classroom

Delivering Information Services: A 30-Year Perspective

well-established firms such as Walgreen's and Rite Aid. We also look at Amazon.com, another upstart that can claim to be "the biggest book store in the world." By looking closely at these companies' use of the Internet— which I believe is the analog to the... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

Swiss Watchmaking By: Raffaelli, Ryan, and Richard DeJordy Abstract—This study examines how influential institutional leaders in the Swiss watch industry responded to its precipitous decline after the introduction of quartz technology.... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

01 Dec 2019
News

Capitalizing the Corner Shop

Amazon of Africa”; at the time of its IPO last April, it was valued at $1.3 billion. A year later, Kehinde and fellow Jumia executive Ercin Eksin went on to found Africa Courier Express (ACE), a logistics company meant to meet the growing last-mile delivery needs of... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell

January 2015 (Revised October 2016)
Case

onefinestay: Building a Luxury Experience in the Sharing Economy

By: Jill Avery, Anat Keinan and Liz Kind

onefinestay was a two-sided marketplace that offered high-end home rentals to travelers who sought a more authentic and local experience than a typical upscale hotel might provide. After five years of rapid growth, it was time to do a comprehensive analysis of the... View Details

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14 Oct 2020
News

Sewn with Love

In the midst of a global pandemic and widespread protests against racial injustice, the fashion industry can seem pretty frivolous. Fashion-industry leader Kikka Hanazawa (MBA 2002), CEO of VPL, a women’s underwear and athleisure company,... View Details

Keywords: Maureen Harmon

01 Apr 2000
News

Getting the Message

astronomical -- as much as $33 billion worldwide by 2004, according to Forrester Research, a consulting firm specializing in e-commerce. Industry observers are shy to predict just what the future of advertising will look like, but they... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

May 2021 (Revised August 2021)
Supplement

Zara: An Integrated Store and Online Model (A) and (B)

By: Antonio Moreno and Anibha Singh

Keywords: Stores; Integration; Operations; Business Model; Strategic Planning; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Europe

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December 2019
Article

The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Donald Ngwe, Kris J. Ferreira and Thales Teixeira

Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. We propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing small obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even... View Details