Publications

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October 2018 (Revised July 2019)
Case

Sidewalk Labs: Privacy in a City Built from the Internet Up

By: Leslie K. John, Mitchell Weiss and Julia Kelley

Email mking@hbs.edu for a courtesy copy.

By the time Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, began hosting a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session in January 2018, he had only nine months remaining to convince the people... View Details

11 Dec 2006
Research & Ideas

Fixing Price Tag Confusion

rental charge and a charge for the remote. Do partitioned prices help the consumer make an informed decision or just add to his or her confusion? Do partitioned prices increase demand? Is an online grocer... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

October 2024
Article

Canary Categories

By: Eric Anderson, Chaoqun Chen, Ayelet Israeli and Duncan Simester

Past customer spending in a category is generally a positive signal of future customer spending. We show that there exist “canary categories” for which the reverse is true. Purchases in these categories are a signal that customers are less likely to return to that... View Details

Keywords: Churn; Churn Management; Churn/retention; Assortment Planning; Retail; Retailing; Retailing Industry; Preference Heterogeneity; Assortment Optimization; Customers; Retention; Consumer Behavior; Forecasting and Prediction; Retail Industry

23 Apr 2014
HBS Case

Are Electronic Cigarettes a Public Good or Health Hazard?

health," one health advocate said. Consisting of a small barrel-shaped design that mimics an actual cigarette, the devices vaporize a liquid nicotine solution, which is then inhaled without the tar and carcinogens found in smoke.... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage; Advertising

February 2021 (Revised March 2021)
Case

AptDeco: Circular Economy Furniture Marketplace

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jamie Merkrebs

AptDeco, a used furniture marketplace, was growing rapidly in the tri-state area. The co-founders were confident that the business model, financial position, and unit economics positioned AptDeco for scaling in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its... View Details

December 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Background Note

Strategic Use of Music in Marketing, The: A Selective Review

By: Gerald Zaltman and Nancy Puccinelli

Summarizes selected research on music and its impact on mood and shopping behavior, and its impact on the communication of ideas. View Details

Keywords: Communication Intention and Meaning; Music Entertainment; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Behavior

January 2022
Case

SpartanNash Company: The Amazon Warrants (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants in almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

10 Feb 2003
Research & Ideas

Commodity Busters: Be a Price Maker, Not a Price Taker

competitive as well as customer pressure. This demands confidence, not bravado; astute analysis not raw aggression; and requires careful, empathetic focus on the other players in the marketplace.... View Details

Keywords: by Benson P. Shapiro

February 2001 (Revised August 2001)
Case

Henry Heinz: Making Markets for Processed Foods

By: Nancy F. Koehn

Outlines many of the supply-side innovations, such as improved transportation, communication, and technological developments, that greatly expanded the productive capacity of the United States in the late 19th century. Explores a range of demand-side shifts, including... View Details

Keywords: Demand and Consumers; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Supply and Industry; Innovation and Invention; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

September 2013
Article

Do Short Sellers Front-Run Insider Sales?

By: Mozaffar N. Khan and Hai Lu

We study the behavior of short sellers as informed market participants and examine potential sources of their information. Using a newly available dataset with high-frequency short sales data, we find evidence of significant increases in short sales immediately prior... View Details

Keywords: Information; Consumer Behavior; Accounting; Financial Services Industry

September 2020
Article

Customer Supercharging in Experience-Centric Channels

By: David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino and Antonio Moreno

We conjecture that for online retailers, experience-centric offline store formats do not simply expand market coverage, but rather, serve to significantly amplify future positive customer behaviors, both online and offline. We term this phenomenon “supercharging” and... View Details

Keywords: Retail Operations; Marketing-operations Interface; Omnichannel Retailing; Experience Attributes; Quasi-experimental Methods; Operations; Internet and the Web; Marketing Channels; Consumer Behavior; Retail Industry

September 2018
Article

Religious Shoppers Spend Less Money

By: Didem Kurt, J. Jeffrey Inman and Francesca Gino

Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects people’s non-religious routines. In the present research, we identify a frequent consumption activity that is influenced by religiosity:... View Details

Keywords: Religion; Spending; Consumer Behavior; Values and Beliefs

November 2000 (Revised May 2002)
Case

FleetBoston Financial: Online Banking

By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar

As the ninth largest bank holding company in the United States in 2000, FleetBoston Financial Corp. provided a myriad of financial services, including retail banking, loan origination, and brokerage accounts. This case explores how FleetBoston responded to the Internet... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Borrowing and Debt; Cost Management; Banks and Banking; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Competition; Online Technology; Banking Industry; United States