Publications

October 2010
Exercise

Investor Meets Calendar Retailer (AMP)

By: Ananth Raman, Vishal Gaur and Richard Lai

Keywords: Investment; Retail Industry

July 2005 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Tanpin Kanri: Retail Practice at Seven-Eleven Japan

By: Rajiv Lal and Arar Han

Toshifumi Suzuki, chairman and CEO of Seven and I Holding Co., was widely credited as the mastermind behind Seven-Eleven Japan's spectacular rise. Although Seven-Eleven Japan began as a small licensee of U.S. convenience store chain 7-Eleven, Inc. (then Southland... View Details

Keywords: Framework; Growth and Development Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Demand and Consumers; Distribution; Logistics; Technology; Retail Industry; Japan

December 1981 (Revised October 1985)
Case

Computer Retailing at Macy's California

By: Hirotaka Takeuchi

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Marketing; Retail Industry; California

March 2011
Background Note

Customer Loyalty Schemes in the Retail Sector

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Aldo Sesia

Customer loyalty schemes (or programs) are explicit efforts by retailers to gain long-term patronage from customers. Loyalty schemes are developed for a variety of reasons: to reward loyal customers, to generate more robust information about customer behavior, to... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Consumer Behavior; Business Strategy; Retail Industry; United Kingdom; United States

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Rapid Response: Inside the Retailing Revolution

and John T. Dunlop of the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and David Weil of Boston University. Their recent book, A Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing and the Transformation of Manufacturing—Lessons from the Apparel and... View Details

Keywords: by James E. Aisner; Retail; Retail; Retail; Retail; Retail

January 2012 (Revised June 2015)
Background Note

Inventory-Based Lending Industry Note

By: C. Fritz Foley, Ananth Raman and Nathan C. Craig

Inventory-based lending is a form of asset-based lending used by retailers and wholesalers. This note describes the development and the current state of the inventory-based lending industry. View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Banking Industry

10 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

The Surprising Winners and Losers in the Retail Revolution

The new book Retail Revolution: Will Your Brick-and-Mortar Store Survive? lays out the thesis that traditional store-front retailing is at an inflection point, under tremendous pressure from ecommerce and... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

Winter 2014
Article

Retail Inventory: Managing the Canary in the Coal Mine!

By: Vishal Gaur, Saravanan Kesavan and Ananth Raman

Retail inventory is a statistic that is closely watched by retailers as well as their investors, lenders, and suppliers. Retailers not only benefit from inventory, but also bear the cost of excess inventory. Investors, lenders, and suppliers interpret this statistic... View Details

Keywords: Financial Condition; Retail Industry

March 2006 (Revised January 2011)
Case

CEMEX: Rewarding the Egyptian Retailers

CEMEX has pursued an aggressive decommoditization strategy focused on its relationship with small Egyptian retailers. In particular, the strategic role and effectiveness of the Rewards Program, a tournament that rewarded the sales performance of the retailers, was... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Performance Improvement; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; Construction Industry; Egypt

July–August 2016
Article

Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets

By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson and Anne Coughlan

Manufacturers in many industries frequently use vertical price policies, such as minimum advertised price (MAP), to influence prices set by downstream retailers. Although manufacturers expect retail partners to comply with MAP policies, violations of MAP are common in... View Details

Keywords: Pricing Policies; Pricing; Channel Management; Legal Aspects Of Business; Price; Governance Compliance; Marketing Channels; Retail Industry

November 1982 (Revised June 1983)
Case

Casual Male: Off-Price Men's Apparel Retailing

By: Richard S. Tedlow

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Apparel and Accessories Industry

October 2020 (Revised February 2021)
Case

Twiga Foods: Revolutionizing African Retail (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh, Pippa Tubman Amerding and Wale Lawal

Twiga is a leading agricultural produce supplier in Kenya offering services to mostly informal retailers. Under Peter Njonjo, a co-founder and Twiga’s new CEO, the company is considering multiple options for expanding its business, including offering packaged foods and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Structure; Retail Industry; Nairobi

May 2013 (Revised April 2015)
Case

Ron Johnson: Retail at Target, Apple, and J.C. Penney

By: Das Narayandas, Kerry Herman and Lisa Mazzanti

In April 2013, Ron Johnson (HBS '84) stepped down after just 18 months as CEO of J.C. Penney. In his brief tenure, Johnson, an acclaimed retailer respected for his innovation and success in shaping the retail image at Target and Apple, introduced dramatic departures... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Innovation Leadership; Situation or Environment; Failure; Management Teams; Brands and Branding; Retail Industry; United States

July 2002 (Revised December 2002)
Background Note

Note on the Evolution of Retail in the United States

By: Arthur I Segel

Covers the evolution of retail real estate in the United States. Specifically covers types of retail centers, such as neighborhood, community, regional, and super-regional as well as the recent phenomenon of the 1990s to 2002 of the growing emergence of value retail,... View Details

Keywords: Change; Retail Industry; United States

March 2011
Case

Cash Flow Productivity at PepsiCo: Communicating Value to Retailers

PepsiCo developed a new metric that better measured the value added by Pepsi products than did gross margin, the traditional metric used by retailers to determine shelf space and promotional activity. The new metric, cash flow productivity, captured the value of... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Cash Flow; Measurement and Metrics; Distribution; Performance Productivity; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Food and Beverage Industry

August 1983 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Nineteenth Century Retailing and the Rise of the Department Store

By: Richard S. Tedlow

Discusses changes in retailing in the nineteenth century. View Details

Keywords: History; Distribution; Change; Retail Industry

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

Keywords: Spending; Marketing Channels; Demand and Consumers; Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Retail Industry; United States