Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(397)
- Faculty Publications (135)
- July 2015
- Case
Vita: Cosmetics in the Nordics
By: Das Narayandas, Krishna Palepu and Kerry Herman
Vita is a Norwegian cosmetics retailer owned by FSN Capital, a Scandinavian private equity company. The company has a strong market position in Norway. The case focuses on two strategic issues: how to develop an e-commerce strategy to supplement the company's... View Details
- June 2015
- Teaching Note
Quincy Apparel
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Lisa C. Mazzanti
- February 2015 (Revised April 2016)
- Supplement
Quincy Apparel (B)
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Lisa C. Mazzanti
The (B) case provides post-mortem analysis from Quincy's cofounders on why their startup failed and what they could have done differently. Explanations for failure focus on Quincy's ambitious value proposition and resulting operational challenges; cofounder conflict;... View Details
- 2014
- Book
Retail Revolution: Will Your Brick & Mortar Store Survive?
By: Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez and Dan Greenberg
In Retail Revolution, the authors go beyond the common belief of retail as a monolithic industry and provide a framework that any brick-and-mortar retailer can use to respond to the eCommerce threat. Through six examples, this book demonstrates how this... View Details
- November 2014
- Supplement
The Grommet - Video Supplement
By: Lynda M. Applegate, Karen Gordon Mills, Lena G. Goldberg and Annelena Lobb
- August 2014 (Revised October 2014)
- Case
Beyoncé
By: Anita Elberse and Stacie Smith
In December 2013, music superstar Beyoncé is about to surprise her fans with the release of her self-titled album. The team at her company Parkwood Entertainment, which general manager Lee Anne Callahan-Longo described as "a management, music, and production company... View Details
- November 2013
- Teaching Note
Barnes & Noble: Managing the E-Book Revolution
By: Alan MacCormack, Brian Kimball Dunn and Chris F. Kemerer
In 2012, Barnes & Noble found itself in a difficult position. While the company had weathered the advent of online retailing relatively well, the arrival of electronic books (e-books) threatened the company's viability. Primary competitor Borders had already fallen by... View Details
- November 2013
- Article
Adding Bricks to Clicks: On the Role of Physical Stores in a World of Online Shopping
By: Jill Avery, Thomas Steenburgh, John A. Deighton and Mary Caravella
Buying a product has never been easier. Consumers can shop online, over the phone or via mail order, from home or on the go, and if they want to experience touch and feel, they can also visit a "real" store. Often, one and the same retailer offers several of these... View Details
- October 2013 (Revised July 2024)
- Teaching Note
Amazon in 2024
By: Sunil Gupta
Amazon launched its website in July 1995 to sell books online and by 2020 it has grown to become a digital giant with over $280 billion in annual sales. A large part of its growth came from expanding into a variety of businesses that some see as unrelated. Has it... View Details
- August 2013 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Amazon in 2024
By: Sunil Gupta and Margaret L. Rodriguez
Amazon launched its website in July 1995 to sell books online and by 2020 it has grown to become a digital giant with over $280 billion in annual sales. A large part of its growth came from expanding into a variety of businesses that some see as unrelated. Has it... View Details
- June 2013 (Revised August 2013)
- Case
AVA.ph: Growing a Filipino E-Commerce Company
By: William R. Kerr and Henry Motte-Munoz
AVA is a three-year old e-commerce company in the Philippines. From its early start mimicking the Gilt Groupe concept of online flash sales, the company has grown into a broader e-commerce platform for local fashion commerce. Oliver Segovia needs to evaluate where AVA... View Details
- February 2013
- Case
18 Months in a Startup: Zaggora.com
By: Tom Nicholas
The founders of Zaggora reflected back on a tumultuous year-and-a-half in which they had generated, from just $40,000 in personal savings, a multi-million dollar sportswear enterprise selling Hotpants to women. These were hotpants not of the 1960s hipster variety, but... View Details
- January 2013
- Case
Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture (MM)
By: Frances X. Frei and Robin J. Ely
On July 17, 2009, Zappos.com, a privately-held online retailer of shoes, clothing, and other soft-line retail categories, learned that Amazon.com, a $19 billion multinational online retailer, had won its Board of Directors' approval to offer to merge the two companies.... View Details
- January 2013 (Revised June 2018)
- Case
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google 2018
By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld
Four businesses had, by 2012, grown to dominate the infrastructure that all firms rely on to reach online customers. Will the balance of power among the four persist, will one take command at the expense of the other three, or are all four more vulnerable than they... View Details
- November 2012
- Teaching Note
Groupon (TN)
By: Sunil Gupta, Ray Weaver and Yien Hao Lock
On November 4, 2011, Groupon, a marketing services company that promoted local businesses by selling deeply discounted vouchers for their products and services, completed its initial public offering that valued the company at $17 billion. Within a year Groupon's share... View Details
- Other Article
The Market That Wasn't: The Non-emergence of the Online Grocery Category
By: Chad Navis, Greg Fisher, Ryan Raffaelli and Mary Ann Glynn
We examine the non-emergence of a potential new market category. In the late 1990s the entrepreneurial firms that attempted to sell groceries online attracted significant resources, made meaningful technological advancements and generated immense publicity, yet online... View Details
- May 2012
- Article
Adding Bricks to Clicks: Predicting the Patterns of Cross-Channel Elasticities over Time
By: Jill Avery, Thomas J. Steenburgh, John Deighton and Mary Caravella
The authors propose a conceptual framework to explain whether and when the introduction of a new retail store channel helps or hurts sales in existing direct channels. A conceptual framework separates short- and long-term effects by analyzing the capabilities of a... View Details
Keywords: Marketing; Channels; Channels Of Distribution; Distribution; Retailing; Channel Management; Channel Migration; Multichannel Retailing; Framework; Customers; Marketing Channels; Sales; Internet and the Web; Demand and Consumers; Competency and Skills; Distribution Channels; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States
- October 2011
- Case
CSN Stores
By: William A. Sahlman and Neil Tolaney
In March 2011, CSN Stores is a collection of nearly 200 Internet retail websites, including Cookware.com, Strollers.com, and Luggage.com. Co-founders Niraj Shah and Steve Conine were considering making a major investment to build brand equity at the corporate level. View Details
- August 2011 (Revised April 2013)
- Case
Language and Globalization: 'Englishnization' at Rakuten (A)
By: Tsedal Neeley
Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Rakuten, (Japan's largest online retailer), is at the helm of an organization that is rapidly expanding into global markets. In a critical stride toward becoming the world's No. 1 Internet services company, Mikitani announces... View Details
- February 2011 (Revised February 2012)
- Case
Online Marketing at Big Skinny
By: Benjamin Edelman and Scott Duke Kominers
Describes a wallet maker's application of seven Internet marketing technologies: display ads, algorithmic search, sponsored search, social media, interactive content, online distributors, and A/B testing. Provides concise introductions to the key features of each... View Details