Supermarket - Publications - Faculty & Research

21 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 21, 2018

case:https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/518066-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 118-074 Whole Foods Under Amazon In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

03 Mar 2014
HBS Case

Decommoditizing the Canned Tomato

brand on a supermarket shelf in Parma a few years ago. She then met Francesco Mutti when he attended Harvard Business School's Executive Education Agribusiness Seminar, held that year in São Paulo, Brazil. "Because he was from Parma and I... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Agriculture & Agribusiness; Food & Beverage; Retail

19 Oct 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Are Web Sites So Confusing?

might be interested in ex-post (i.e., once there). Thus, consumers coming to the supermarket to buy daily staples (say, bread and milk) might be induced to also get expensive chocolate if they have to walk past the corresponding aisle... View Details

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Bruno Jullien

16 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

Marketing Wine to the World

industry. Buyer power appears to be higher in the Old World. Consumers are more sophisticated and somewhat more price sensitive in the Old World than in the New World. More sales occur through supermarkets and other off-premise locations... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Consumer Products; Entertainment & Recreation; Food & Beverage

01 Oct 2008
Research & Ideas

How Much Time Should CEOs Devote to Customers?

versus the inside. Marketing expertise depends on customer insights. These insights cannot be gleaned from looking at market research data on a computer screen. Just like politics, all marketing is retail. The customer votes every day at the View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch

25 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Should You Sell Your Digital Privacy?

because I want them to keep giving me the best service they can deliver in exchange for my commitment to fly them whenever I can. Consumers can achieve anonymity today by declining to join supermarket frequent shopper programs, but by so... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls & Sean Silverthorne; Advertising

17 Mar 2022
Research & Ideas

Navigating Tradeoffs: How Purpose Becomes a Company's ‘Lighthouse in the Storm’

a bind: Would they have to compromise on their social purpose and use plastic? Or could they come up with a different solution? Team members had an idea: What if they sold their produce to supermarkets unpackaged, and View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati

14 Jul 2006
Op-Ed

The Case for Consumer-Driven Medicaid

for the private sector's consumer-driven experiences with lower-income populations, the experience of Whole Foods, a supermarket chain, is instructive. As of 2004, its employees, primarily blue collar, have saved $14 million in health... View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger

03 Sep 2014
What Do You Think?

Who Should Choose Your Boss?

headed? If so, is the question of who should choose your boss becoming "a little irrelevant"? What do you think? Original Article Recent events surrounding the walkout of many of the 25,000 employees at Market Basket, a Massachusetts-based View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Food & Beverage

21 Mar 2004
Research & Ideas

Loyalty: Don’t Give Away the Store

loyalty programs, and it is possible to get a good sample from them. We sampled one supermarket store and one supermarket chain. Q: I have at least three loyalty shopper cards in my wallet. What percentage... View Details

Keywords: by Manda Salls; Consumer Products; Retail

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

‘Retail Revolution’ Excerpt: The Scale of the Ecommerce Threat

fulfillment of basic needs, such as Consumer Product Goods and apparel basics, is growing. With customers increasingly ordering these and other products online, potential shoppers have fewer reasons to leave their homes, and the clothing store collocated with the View Details

Keywords: Re: Rajiv Lal; Retail

01 Jul 2019
Research & Ideas

The Airbnb Lesson for Startups? Success Takes More Than Technology

money by becoming the supermarket for all your travel needs. That has not been the case in the travel industry. Kost: Why is that? Teixeira: Hotels focus on customers from the time they enter their doors to when they leave. Airlines focus... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Travel; Tourism

05 Jun 2000
What Do You Think?

What’s Happening to Our Patience?

increasing their value. Denise Rickman grabs a magazine from the rack while in the supermarket checkout lane. Imran Jafar rides his scooter to work, enjoying the benefits of close-to-the-road transportation, exercise, and what sounds a... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

26 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

How Grocery Bags Manipulate Your Mind

bags" participants were asked to imagine approaching a supermarket to do their grocery shopping with their own bags. The "without bags" group received nearly identical instructions, but nothing about bags was mentioned. All... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

07 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Banning Big-box Stores Can Hurt Local Retailers

Tesco shops were replacing independent businesses. "What the politicians did not anticipate was that these large supermarket chains were going to come in anyway, regardless of regulations," Sadun says. "They had reached a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Retail

12 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 12, 2007

company in the global animal health industry through innovative technology, creative marketing, and strong branding. Sel-Plex, a proprietary Alltech product, had shown important health benefits for animals and humans. Although numerous branded selenium-enriched... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

24 Mar 2015
First Look

First Look: March 24

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2575912 Cases & Course Materials Harvard Business School Case 515-011 Muñoz Group: Sustaining Global Vertical Integration Through Innovation Muñoz Group, which supplied supermarket... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

23 May 2019
Book

These Entrepreneurs Take a Pragmatic Approach to Solving Social Problems

In 1908, Harvard Business School’s first dean, Edwin Francis Gay, welcomed the School’s inaugural class of 59 students by saying that HBS was challenged with encouraging its students to have the “intellectual respect for business as a profession, with the social... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Green Technology

19 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 19, 2018

Can companies bet that a reunion would last? Purchase this case:https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/717035-PDF-ENG Harvard Business School Case 518-056 Amazon Buys Whole Foods The June 2017 news that e-commerce giant Amazon was paying $13.7 billion for organic View Details