Publications

June 2016 (Revised January 2018)
Case

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Growing from One Thousand to One Million Customers

By: Thales S. Teixeira and Morgan Brown

By 2016, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were pervasive among the highest growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable... View Details

Keywords: Airbnb; Etsy; Uber; Growth Hacking; Two Sided Markets; Digital Platforms; Marketing; Digital Marketing; Growth Management; Service Industry

02 May 2016
HBS Seminar

Chiara Farronato, Harvard Business School

14 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’

four Porsches in the garage and who join online brand communities to share in their love for the brand. When Porsche tried to appeal to female consumers with its Porsche Cayenne SUV, these fanatics howled in... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

June 2022
Case

Zalando: Becoming the Starting Point for Fashion

By: Antonio Moreno, Leela Nageswaran, Emilie Billaud and Federica Gabrieli

Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Customer Value and Value Chain; Digital Platforms; Distribution; Order Taking and Fulfillment; Infrastructure; Logistics; Service Operations; Strategy; Business Strategy; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Distribution Industry; Retail Industry; Service Industry; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Europe

21 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Buy Now, Pay Later: How Retail's Hot Feature Hurts Low-Income Shoppers

Online shopping features that let consumers pay for goods in interest-free installments exploded during the pandemic, but new research questions the riskiness of such services: Are people getting in over... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Retail; Financial Services; Technology

March 2021
Case

The U.S. Home Improvement Sector in 2020

By: José Alvarez and David Lane

Provides an overview of the U.S. home improvement sector in 2020, reviewing sources of growth in the decade ending in 2020, with special attention to the impact of COVID-19 on market leaders Home Depot and Lowe’s and the spike in online revenues for both. Also noted... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Trends; Leading Change; Operations; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Performance; Technology; Construction Industry; United States

17 Aug 2018
News

How TripAdvisor changed travel

Research Summary

Drip Pricing

Anyone who has shopped for an airline ticket online has experienced drip pricing, as each successive screen seems to reveal another fee throughout the purchasing process. This practice is becoming prevalent in a variety of industries, but its effect on consumers is... 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

Keywords: Retail; Value Capture; Internet and the Web; Entrepreneurship; Product Launch; Value; Retail Industry

February 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Best Buy Health: Enabling Care at Home

By: Robert S. Huckman, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Antonio Moreno, Bradley Staats and Sarah Mehta

This case explores retailer Best Buy’s decision to enter health care. Best Buy Health aims to enable care at home across three prongs: consumer health, active aging, and virtual care. A key pillar of Best Buy Health's strategy is leveraging the Geek Squad—the company's... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Health Care and Treatment; Innovation and Invention; Business Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Electronics Industry; Health Industry; Retail Industry; United States; Minnesota

31 Aug 2020
Blog Post

Five Important Steps before Taking the Entrepreneurial Leap

that pioneered conversational commerce. At Hilma, Hilary leverages her personal passion for consumer products and integrative health with her Harvard MBA, and impressive professional history of launching new View Details

14 Nov 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas: November 14, 2017

Benjamin Abstract—I present the institutions and incentives of online reviews, including attracting initial reviews, assuring truthful reviews of genuine experiences, and avoiding inflated or deceptive... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

29 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

How Much More Would Holiday Shoppers Pay to Wear Something Rare?

it.” You Might Also Like: How Paid Promos Take the Shine Off YouTube Stars (and Tips for Better Influencer Marketing) Burgers with Bugs? What Happens When Restaurants Ignore Online Reviews Dog Eat Dog:... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Retail

November 2020
Case

Axis My India

By: Ananth Raman, Ann Winslow and Kairavi Dey

Pradeep Gupta founded Axis My India (AMI) as a printing and publishing company in 1998. In 2013, AMI expanded into consumer research and election forecasting. Although a relatively unknown entity, AMI predicted several election results accurately. Gupta describes AMI’s... View Details

Keywords: Market Research; Operations; Management; Infrastructure; Logistics; Service Operations; Political Elections; Forecasting and Prediction; Asia; India

2023
Chapter

Marketing Through the Machine’s Eyes: Image Analytics and Interpretability

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Flora Feng and Kannan Srinivasan

he growth of social media and the sharing economy is generating abundant unstructured image and video data. Computer vision techniques can derive rich insights from unstructured data and can inform recommendations for increasing profits and consumer utility—if only the... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Marketing Research; Algorithmic Bias; AI and Machine Learning; Marketing

April 1990
Case

Nestle Alimentana S.A. -- Infant Formula (Abridged)

By: James E. Austin

The new vice president of infant and dietetic products of Nestle Alimentana S.A. has to make recommendations on the company's marketing programs for its infant formulas in developing countries. The U.S. subsidiary is currently the target of a consumer boycott because... View Details

Keywords: Product Marketing; Emerging Markets; Developing Countries and Economies; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Food; Business Subsidiaries; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Switzerland

31 Aug 2017
News

Google And Microsoft Can Use Ai To Extract Many More Ad Dollars From Our Clicks

August 2012 (Revised August 2013)
Background Note

Competency-Destroying Technology Transitions: Why the Transition to Digital Is Particularly Challenging

By: Willy Shih

Some technology transitions are exceedingly difficult for incumbent firms to execute. The bankruptcy filing by the Eastman Kodak Company highlighted the difficulty companies faced when their core business transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Kodak's business... View Details