Publications

“The use of this lever of discounts has been so high in many aspects, it is causing e-commerce companies to become unprofitable,” says Teixeira, the Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration. “We don’t think that’s necessarily the right approach.”... View Details

July 7, 2022
Other Article

Are Online Prices Higher Because of Pricing Algorithms?

By: Zach Y. Brown and Alexander J. MacKay

This article reviews recent work examining pricing strategies of major online retailers and the potential effects of pricing algorithms. We describe how pricing algorithms can lead to higher prices in a number of ways, even if some characteristics of these algorithms... View Details

Keywords: Pricing Algorithms; Online Marketplace; Digital Strategy; Internet and the Web; Retail Industry

November 2021 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Kwame Spearman at Tattered Cover: Reinventing Brick-and-Mortar Retail

By: Ryan Raffaelli and Kerry Herman

The case spotlights Kwame Spearman’s career-shifting decision to leave a NYC-based consulting job to return to his hometown of Denver, Colorado, and take over an iconic independent bookstore, The Tattered Cover. The case lays out ways Spearman envisions a new approach... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Leadership; Leading Change; Competitive Strategy; Personal Development and Career; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States

19 Jan 2021
Working Paper Summaries

The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers

Keywords: by Ron Berman and Ayelet Israeli; Retail; Retail

The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers - Marketing Science

Does the adoption of descriptive analytics impact online retailer performance, and if so, how? We use the synthetic difference-in-differences method to analyze the staggered adoption of a retail analytics dashboard by more than 1,500 e-commerce websites, and we... View Details

October 2017 (Revised October 2022)
Case

Jumia Nigeria: from Retail to Marketplace (A)

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Namrata Arora

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 Ecosystem; Business Ecosystems; Competition; Business Model; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Expansion; Logistics; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Retail Industry; India; Nigeria; Africa

2019
Working Paper

The Effect of Payment Choices on Online Retail: Evidence from the 2016 Indian Demonetization

By: Chaithanya Bandi, Antonio Moreno, Donald Ngwe and Zhiji Xu

The Indian banknote demonetization in 2016 was one of the most significant international events of that year. Overnight, 86% of Indian currency in circulation was declared invalid unless exchanged for new bills. The sudden and unexpected demonetization constituted a... View Details

Keywords: Cash On Delivery; Online Retail; Product Returns; Payment Methods; Digitization; Emerging Markets; Currency; Internet and the Web; Demand and Consumers; Retail Industry; India

Article

Online and Official Price Indexes: Measuring Argentina's Inflation

By: Alberto Cavallo

Prices collected from online retailers can be used to construct daily price indexes that complement official statistics. This paper studies their ability to match official inflation estimates in five Latin American countries, with a focus on Argentina, where official... View Details

Keywords: Inflation; Online Price Index; Economics; Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; Price; Latin America; Argentina

November–December 2018
Article

Online Network Revenue Management Using Thompson Sampling

By: Kris J. Ferreira, David Simchi-Levi and He Wang

We consider a network revenue management problem where an online retailer aims to maximize revenue from multiple products with limited inventory constraints. As common in practice, the retailer does not know the consumer's purchase probability at each price and must... View Details

Keywords: Online Marketing; Revenue Management; Revenue; Management; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Price; Mathematical Methods

30 May 2018
Research & Ideas

Should Retailers Match Their Own Prices Online and in Stores?

The line gets blurry for shoppers when retailers won't honor their online prices in-store. (Kwangmoozaa) While shopping for my 10-year-old daughter’s Halloween costume last October, I pulled out my... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

12 Jan 2015
News

Why Online Retailers Are Starting to Care About Your Feelings

Keywords: e-commerce; consumer behavior; innovation; Retail Trade

January 2013 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Creating a Luxury Experience at Value Retail

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew Preble

Value Retail PLC owned and managed a number of premium shopping destinations (Villages) across Europe. Soon the company would be moving into an entirely new market: China. The company's Villages had proven popular with both shoppers (many of whom were international... View Details

Keywords: Retailing; Tourism; Luxury; Brand Building; Brand Positioning; Real Estate; Brands and Branding; Human Resources; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Europe; China

January 2021
Supplement

E-Commerce Analytics for CPG Firms (B): Optimizing Assortment for a New Retailer

By: Ayelet Israeli and Fedor (Ted) Lisitsyn

The E-Commerce Analytics group at the traditional CPG firm was in charge of compiling various online sales reports, as well as making data-driven recommendations for sales and marketing tactics. In a series of exercises, students address different data challenges for... View Details

Keywords: Data Analysis; Data Analytics; CPG; Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG); Online Channel; Retail; Retail Analytics; Retailing Industry; Data; Data Sharing; Ecommerce; Assortment Optimization; Assortment Planning; Analytics and Data Science; Retention; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States

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

Keywords: Online Retailing; Friction; Effor; Search Costs; Price Discrimination; Marketing; Consumer Behavior; Strategy; Price; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

Article

Integration of Online and Offline Channels in Retail: The Impact of Sharing Reliable Inventory Availability Information

By: Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

Using a proprietary data set, we analyze the impact of the implementation of a “buy-online, pick-up-in-store” (BOPS) project. The implementation of this project is associated with a reduction in online sales and an increase in store sales and traffic. These results can... View Details

Keywords: Retail Operations; Inventory Availability; Empirical Operations Management; Business Analytics; Online Retail; Ecommerce; Operations; Management; Distribution Channels; Consumer Behavior; E-commerce; Retail Industry

2019
Working Paper

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

Keywords: E-commerce; Online Retailing; Friction; Effor; Search Costs; Price Discrimination; Consumer Behavior; Price; Search Technology

2019
Article

More Amazon Effects: Online Competition and Pricing Behaviors

By: Alberto Cavallo

I study how online competition, with its shrinking margins, algorithmic pricing technologies, and the transparency of the web, can change the pricing behavior of large retailers in the U.S. and affect aggregate inflation dynamics. In particular, I show that in the past... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Online Prices; Inflation; Uniform Pricing; Price Stickiness; Monetary Economics; Economics; Macroeconomics; Inflation and Deflation; System Shocks; United States

28 Nov 2018
HBS Case

On Target: Rethinking the Retail Website

mistake of treating their online unit as a mere add-on to the store. Target, by contrast, spent much time focusing on how data could be used specifically to help build its web arm. And the retailer was... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Retail

January 2021
Exercise

E-Commerce Analytics for CPG Firms (B): Optimizing Assortment for a New Retailer

By: Ayelet Israeli and Fedor (Ted) Lisitsyn

The E-Commerce Analytics group at the traditional CPG firm was in charge of compiling various online sales reports, as well as making data-driven recommendations for sales and marketing tactics. In a series of exercises, students address different data challenges for... View Details