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Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(266)
- News (69)
- Research (153)
- Events (1)
- Multimedia (1)
- Faculty Publications (75)
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- 06 Feb 2013
- What Do You Think?
Is ‘Conscious Capitalism’ an Antidote to Income Inequality?
stock went up 10 percent in the first hour after the market closed and the earnings were announced." This is a product of a philosophy that employees are critical, because they basically run the business. Working in teams in the company's stores, they buy some of the... View Details
Keywords: by James Heskett
- 10 Oct 2011
- Research & Ideas
Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink
unique assortment at Victoria's Secret clearly leverages its web presence. And Toys "R" Us recently announced that it will add significant amounts of unique merchandise to its assortment for this holiday shopping season. The marriage of... View Details
- 15 Oct 2007
- Research & Ideas
Businesses Beware: The World Is Not Flat
International is increasingly cognizant of the need to adapt to local contexts—as evinced not only by the India entry strategy but by changes in merchandising policies, clearer definition of decision rights, and even the astonishing... View Details
Keywords: by Martha Lagace
- 10 Feb 2003
- Research & Ideas
Commodity Busters: Be a Price Maker, Not a Price Taker
customers are encouraged to trade down to lower margin merchandise or services, or just become so confused that they won't buy. It is difficult enough to compete with others; do not compete with yourself! By and large, simple product... View Details
Keywords: by Benson P. Shapiro
- 30 Mar 2003
- Research & Ideas
How Your Employees and Customers Drive a New Value Profit Chain
people back to Bentonville headquarters for recognition; and executive merchandising contests that create incentives for executives to spend more time in the stores. All of this reflects basic company values and culture. In other very... View Details
Keywords: by Manda Mahoney
- 04 Aug 2006
- What Do You Think?
What Happens When the Economics of Scarcity Meets the Economics of Abundance?
making purchases of merchandise generally thought to be in what Anderson calls "the Short Head" of the item popularity curve. The Short Head accommodates hit recordings, the most popular fashions, best-selling books, and other... View Details
Keywords: by James Heskett
- 27 Apr 2010
- First Look
First Look: April 27
growth track but remains chiefly concerned about its vulnerability to supply disruptions and to increases in merchandise costs from higher input prices. The firm appears quite overvalued based on a multiples analysis but considerably... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
- 02 Mar 2015
- Research & Ideas
‘Retail Revolution’ Excerpt: The Scale of the Ecommerce Threat
merchandise categories or sub-categories online. Best Buy, for example, allots floor space only to higher-end televisions—commodity-level TVs are mostly merchandised online. Virtually all major retailers... View Details
- 01 Nov 2016
- First Look
First Look - November 1, 2016
brands. Companies can leverage storytelling to build their brands, and careful brand extensions can grow the business as long as they do not alienate core loyalists. Other potentially risky opportunities to weigh carefully are moving production from the original... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- 28 Aug 2007
- First Look
First Look: August 28, 2007
suppliers and reselling them, in the process absorbing all the risk of platform failure. In stage two, the firm shifts risk and control back to some or all of its suppliers, giving them more responsibility for managing inventory, pricing, and View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace
- 18 Apr 2005
- Research & Ideas
Tips to Reinvent the Department Store
looking to become what they want to be—as opposed to a series of vendor shops.— Pat Chadwick, Bloomingdale's Alan Barnett, senior vice president of merchandise planning and information systems for Barneys New York, noted that "the... View Details
- 01 Jun 2020
- What Do You Think?
Will Challenged Amazon Tweak Its Retail Model Post-Pandemic?
Amazon. Customer service is relative, a product of customer expectations compared to actual experiences. Amazon has created very high customer expectations for in-stock merchandise and rapid delivery and, in the past, generally met them.... View Details
- 30 Oct 2005
- Research & Ideas
Tuning Jobs to Fit Your Company
hours of operation, merchandising displays, and pricing. By contrast, the span of control for managers at corporate headquarters who oversee merchandising and other core operations is set at... View Details
Keywords: by Robert Simons
- 29 Oct 2000
- Research & Ideas
Building a Powerful Prestige Brand
consumers had to pay for merchandise with cash. This, the entrepreneur believed, precluded a consumer from making a spontaneous purchase. In the late 1940s, banks did not usually provide loans for consumer purchases other than housing.... View Details
- 10 Mar 2015
- Research & Ideas
The Surprising Winners and Losers in the Retail Revolution
Look at the business model. Walmart catapulted into a $400-billion-plus company by luring customers into stores with groceries at very low margins, reaping the benefits of additional trips, which generated increased sales of higher-margin general View Details
- 08 Dec 2008
- Research & Ideas
Thinking Twice About Supply-Chain Layoffs
potential profit drivers rather than the first troops to cut in a downturn. Ton's working paper, "The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality", examines how mundane activities such as stocking shelves, setting up displays, labeling, and returning unsold... View Details
- 18 Oct 2018
- Research & Ideas
How to Use Free Shipping as a Competitive Weapon
most profitable. "Not only are merchandise profits higher under contingent free shipping than under free shipping, but our estimates imply that the firm could derive even higher merchandise profits by... View Details
- 15 Jul 2015
- Research & Ideas
Amazon Prime Day: The Logic Behind a Retailer’s Made-up Holiday
merchandise and had trouble fulfilling many orders. Gupta said the main goal for Amazon in hosting Prime Day will clearly be customer acquisition, whether by attracting brand new customers through the sale's buzz, or by getting occasional... View Details
- 10 Sep 2008
- Research & Ideas
Long-Tail Economics? Give Me Blockbusters!
and five companion movies. Adding DVD and merchandise sales, theme parks, etc., Advertising Age valued the Potter economy at $15 billion. Sizzle. A blockbuster does not just address an important need. It does so in an exciting and... View Details
- 07 Aug 2000
- Research & Ideas
Rocket Science Retailing
each store by product category. It uses its merchandise planning system to automatically adjust the inventory at a store based on sales in each product category. Thus, a store in Anchorage, Alaska, would carry a wide assortment of books... View Details