Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(2,383)
- Faculty Publications (1,121)
- 2007
- Working Paper
The 'Fees → Savings' Link, or Purchasing Fifty Pounds of Pasta
By: Michael I. Norton and Leonard Lee
Many consumers have had the experience of entering discount membership clubs to make a few purchases, only to leave with enough pasta to outlast a nuclear winter. We suggest that the presence of membership fees can lead consumers to infer a "fees → savings" link,... View Details
- October 2007 (Revised December 2007)
- Case
TiVo 2007: DVRs and Beyond
By: David B. Yoffie and Michael Slind
Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, had placed multiple strategic bets on his company. In September 2007, that strategy was due for a major test. TiVo was a maker of digital video recorder (DVR) products and a distributor of DVR technology. Rogers believed that macro-trends in... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
Mental Accounting and Small Windfalls: Evidence from an Online Grocer
By: Katherine L. Milkman, John Beshears, Todd Rogers and Max H. Bazerman
We study the effect of small windfalls on consumer spending decisions by examining the purchasing behavior of a sample of online grocery shoppers over the course of a year. We compare the purchases customers make when redeeming a $10-off coupon they received from their... View Details
- August 2007 (Revised April 2008)
- Case
Texas Pacific Group--J. Crew
By: Michael J. Roberts, William A. Sahlman and Lauren Barley
Describes Texas Pacific Group's purchase and operation of J. Crew, the catalog and specialty clothing retailer. Highlights the issues involved in financing such a transaction, and then focuses on the operational challenges of turning around the business, and of TPG's... View Details
- August 2007 (Revised February 2008)
- Case
Gome Electronics: Evolving the Business Model
By: Regina M. Abrami, William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan, Gao Wang, Fei Li, Tracy Manty and Waishun Lo
After 20 years of expansion, Gome Electronics has become China's largest consumer electronics retailer. It has opened stores in almost every province in China, acquired some of its competitors, and went public in Hong Kong. However, it has begun to experience a... View Details
- 2007
- Working Paper
A Taste For Obscurity: An Individual-Level Examination of 'Long Tail' Consumption
By: Anita Elberse
Because online retailers are often able to provide products in a more cost-efficient manner than bricks-and-mortar stores, online channels are characterized by a vast assortment of products. Proponents of the "long tail" principle recently argued that the demand for... View Details
- July 2007
- Case
Kroger Union Negotiations 2005
By: Dennis A. Yao and Mary L. Shelman
A stylized version of the negotiations between Kroger Company and its local unions during 2005. Management faces a sequence of individual negotiations with local unions in addition to meeting the new competitive challenges presented by Wal-Mart's expansion in the... View Details
- July 2007 (Revised March 2008)
- Background Note
Staging Two-Sided Platforms
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Andrei Hagiu
Firms that aspire to develop two-sided platforms face a formidable challenge. Prospective users on each side will not invest in the platform until they are confident there will be enough users on the other side. Traditional strategies for dealing with this... View Details
- June 2007
- Case
Wal-Mart Mexico: Managing Multiple Formats
By: Rajiv Lal, Mark Rennella and David Lane
"On February 1, 2007, Wal-Mart Mexico (Walmex) CEO Eduardo Solorzano was preparing for a well deserved, two-week vacation on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Things were going well. Wal-Mart Mexico, which consisted principally of six different retail formats, had been... View Details
- June 2007 (Revised April 2009)
- Supplement
Dollar General (B)
By: Willy C. Shih and Rebecca McKillican
Keywords: Retail Industry
- May 2007 (Revised November 2019)
- Case
Dollar General (A)
By: Willy Shih, Stephen P. Kaufman and Rebecca McKillican
Dollar General Corporation (DG) operates one of the leading chains of extreme value retailers in the United States. 2006 revenues reached $9.2 billion, making DG the 6th largest mass retailer in the country. With revenues growing at 9% annually over the five-year... View Details
- May 2007 (Revised April 2009)
- Case
Netflix
By: Willy C. Shih, Stephen P. Kaufman and David Spinola
Reed Hastings founded Netflix with a vision to provide a home movie service that would do a better job satisfying customers than the traditional retail rental model. But as it encouraged challenges it underwent several major strategy shifts, ultimately developing a... View Details
- May 2007 (Revised July 2011)
- Background Note
Retail Shopping in 2007: The Net Versus the Mall
By: Stephen P. Bradley, Nancy Bartlett and James Weber
Provides an overview of the retail sector within the United States as online shopping captures an increased percentage of consumer spending. The role of enabling technologies and applications, including comparison shopping sites and recommendation systems, are covered.... View Details
- April 2007 (Revised May 2007)
- Case
John Mackey and Whole Foods Market
By: Nancy F. Koehn and Katherine Miller
Traces the history of organic agriculture from its pre-industrial roots to the present day, and examines the growth of Whole Foods Market in the context of the broader growth of the organic industry. Also investigates John Mackey's role as a founder and leader of the... View Details
Keywords: Leadership; Food; Entrepreneurship; Agribusiness; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; Retail Industry
- April 2007 (Revised January 2010)
- Supplement
Tom Muccio: Negotiating the P&G Relationship with Wal-Mart (B)
By: James K. Sebenius and Ellen Knebel
Supplements the (A) case. View Details
- 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
- March 2007
- Case
JCPenney: An Historical Shift toward Centralization
By: Rajiv Lal and Laura Winig
In September 2006, Michael Taxter knew that JCPenney Company, the nation's 3rd largest department store retailer, with $18 billion in sales and more than 1,000 department stores throughout the United States, had survived the greatest challenge of its 100-year history. View Details
- March 2007 (Revised July 2011)
- Case
Nike Inc. - Heading Toward 2012
This is a short case (2 pages), which can be distributed and discussed in class as an update through 2006 of the Nike case series. It follows Nike, Inc.: Entering the Millennium (Case #299-084). View Details
- March 2007
- Supplement