Publications

June 2022 (Revised October 2022)
Background Note

Digital Commerce and Delivery: Preparing Food and Retail Value Chains for a 50-50 World

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor, Paige Boehmcke and Will Ensor

Increasing digitalization of grocery retail and quick commerce reveals insights about managing complex supply chains at scale and shifting revenue streams from product sales to data monetization. How are the roles of retailers changing? What happens if marginal cost... View Details

Keywords: Grocery Delivery; Grocery; Digitalization; Fulfillment; Delivery; Supply Chain; Disruption; Food; Supply Chain Management; Market Design; Trends; Value Creation; Goods and Commodities; Customer Value and Value Chain; Digital Transformation; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; China

12 Jul 2023
News

Americans Using ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Apps to Contend with High Grocery Prices

March 2010
Article

I'll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: A Study of Online Grocery Purchases and Order Lead Time

By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max Bazerman

How do decisions made for tomorrow or two days in the future differ from decisions made for several days in the future? We use data from an online grocer to address this question. In general, we find that as the delay between order completion and delivery increases,... View Details

Keywords: Time Management; Service Delivery; Internet and the Web; Decisions; Customers; Retail Industry

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November 2020 (Revised November 2020)
Case

Daily Table

By: José B. Alvarez, Zeynep Ton and Annelena Lobb

Daily Table is a case about a grocery chain with two outposts in Boston neighborhoods Dorchester and Roxbury. Its mission is to provide healthy food at lower prices to people in lower-income neighborhoods. The case explores Daily Table’s responsibility to its employees... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; COVID-19 Pandemic; Food; Nonprofit Organizations; Employees; Wages; Employee Relationship Management; Boston

December 2015 (Revised February 2016)
Case

Ocado

By: José Alvarez, David E. Bell and Damien McLoughlin

In 2015, U.K.-based Ocado was the world's largest pure player in the online home-delivery grocery business and was gaining a growing share of the highly competitive U.K. grocery market. Ocado had made heavy investments in technology, including a highly automated... View Details

22 May 2021
News

This Neighborhood Badly Needs A Grocery Store. A Medical Device Maker Will Build One

December 2017 (Revised May 2018)
Case

Amazon Buys Whole Foods

By: José B. Alvarez, David Lane and Joni Coughlin

The June 2017 news that e-commerce giant Amazon was paying $13.7 billion for organic supermarket chain Whole Foods precipitated a broad sell-off in the shares of grocery retailers and suppliers. Behind the precipitous declines lay recognition that Amazon’s bold move... View Details

Keywords: Amazon; Whole Foods; Grocery; Grocery Delivery; Mergers ＆ Acquisitions; Business Models; Food Value Chain; Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Operations; Competitive Strategy; E-commerce; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

2007
Working Paper

I'll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: A Study of Online Grocery Purchases and Order Lead Time

By: Katherine L. Milkman, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman

How do decisions made for tomorrow or two days in the future differ from decisions made for several days in the future? We use data from an online grocer to address this question. In general, we find that as the delay between order completion and delivery increases,... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Food; Decision Choices and Conditions; Conflict and Resolution; Emotions; Cognition and Thinking; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

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18 Apr 2023
News

Americans Go Deeper Into Debt as They Use Buy Now, Pay Later Apps for Groceries

2016
Case

Advanced Leadership Pathways: Doug Rauch and the Daily Table

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Peter Zimmerman and Penelope Rossano

Former Trader Joe's President Doug Rauch developed an innovative idea to address the challenge of food insecurity, food waste, and nutrition. His concept was a new retail grocery model, offering nutritious affordable food to a food insecure population in the inner city... View Details

Keywords: Food Insecurity; Grocery; Social Entrepreneurship; Food; Health; Nonprofit Organizations; Boston

July 2015
Article

BYOB: How Bringing Your Own Shopping Bags Leads to Treating Yourself, and the Environment

By: Uma R. Karmarkar and Bryan Bollinger

As concerns about pollution and climate change have become more central in public discourse, shopping with reusable grocery bags has been strongly promoted as environmentally and socially conscious. In parallel, firms have joined policy makers in using a variety of... View Details

Keywords: Grocery Shopping; Reusable Bags; Licensing; Priming; Goals; Hedonic; Marketing Strategy; Consumer Behavior; Environmental Sustainability; Retail Industry

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January 2015 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Wegmans and Listeria: Developing a Proactive Food Safety System for Produce

By: Ray A. Goldberg and Christine Snively

In July 2014, supermarket chain Wegmans received notification from supplier Wawona Packing Co. that its peaches arrived in Australia with a small trace of Listeria monocytogenes. While some countries such as Australia allowed low-levels of listeria to be present in... View Details

Keywords: Food Safety; Food Safety Standards; Grocery; Safety; Food; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Australia; United States