Publications

01 Apr 2024
In Practice

Navigating the Mood of Customers Weary of Price Hikes

Inflation remains front and center for consumers and businesses, which continue to reel from the double-digit rise in prices during the COVID-19 pandemic and the interest rate hikes designed to cool them. While price increases for goods have slowed, the climate remains... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Retail; Retail

09 Dec 2002
Research & Ideas

Unilever—A Case Study

animal feeds. In Europe, its food business spanned all stages of the industry, from fishing fleets to retail shops. Among its range of ancillary services were shipping, paper, packaging, plastics, and advertising and market research.... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Retail; Retail; Retail; Retail; Retail

Ryan W. Buell

Ryan W. Buell is a Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches View Details

Keywords: retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing; retailing

Article

How Market Power Affects Dynamic Pricing: Evidence from Inventory Fluctuations at Car Dealerships

By: Ayelet Israeli, Fiona Scott-Morton, Jorge Silva-Risso and Florian Zettelmeyer

This paper investigates empirically the effect of market power on dynamic pricing in the presence of inventories. Our setting is the auto retail industry; we analyze how automotive dealerships adjust prices to inventory levels under varying degrees of market power. We... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Pricing; Market Power; Pricing; Price Discrimination; Inventory Production; Marketing; Price; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

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25 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Rapport: The Hidden Advantage That Women Managers Bring to Teams

(worldwide), but service industries like food and retail in this part of the world are great examples, and they occupy very large proportions of the labor force. The findings here apply to a lot of workers,” Tamayo says. Rather than hire... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Food & Beverage

November 2015 (Revised October 2017)
Case

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price, Suraj Srinivasan and David Lane

In spring 2015, Dollar General's CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; United States

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Hedge Fund Manufacturing Non-Profit Other Financial Services Real Estate Retail Services Technology Venture Capital / Private Equity / LBO Other - Please note in message Message* Career & Professional Development Harvard Business School... View Details

June 2017
Teaching Note

The De Beers Group: Exploring the Diamond Reselling Opportunity

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel P. Gross and Lauren G. Pickle

In September 2014, Tom Montgomery (SVP of strategic initiatives at the De Beers Group) and his team launched a pilot program in the United States to explore $1 billion diamond market for pre-owned (recycled) diamonds. According to Montgomery, the motivation for the... View Details

15 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 15

tax rates at high incomes are lower than in standard analysis and closer to those observed in policy. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/12-064.pdf Cases & Course MaterialsHome Depot and Interconnected Retail José... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

August 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Supplement

Migros Turkey: Scaling Online Operations (B)

By: Antonio Moreno and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in February 2020 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey’s oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are looking over the results of the fulfillment pilot the... View Details

Keywords: Grocery; Business Model; Strategy; Digital Platforms; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Value Creation; Globalization; Competition; Expansion; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry; Turkey

April 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Teaching Note

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price and Suraj Srinivasan

In spring 2015, Dollar General CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over 11,500... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry

February 2017 (Revised May 2022)
Case

The De Beers Group: Exploring the Diamond Reselling Opportunity

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Daniel P. Gross and Lauren G. Pickle

In September 2014, Tom Montgomery (SVP of strategic initiatives at the De Beers Group) and his team launched a pilot program in the United States to explore the $1 billion diamond market for pre-owned (recycled) diamonds. According to Montgomery, the motivation for the... View Details

October 2014 (Revised June 2021)
Teaching Note

Making Room for the Baby Boom: Senior Living

By: Charles F. Wu and Ben Eppler

Tom Alperin's firm National Development is an experienced multifamily and commercial developer in the Northeast. It has a strong track record for working on challenging projects, delivering high quality products and generating strong returns for his investors. The firm... View Details

Keywords: Housing; Age; Investment Return; Construction Industry; Real Estate Industry; Massachusetts

2015
Working Paper

The Market That Wasn't: The Non-Emergence of the Online Grocery Category.

By: C. Navis, G. Fisher, Ryan Raffaelli and Mary Ann Glynn

In this paper, we examine the non-emergence of a potential new market category. In the late 1990s, the entrepreneurial firms that attempted to sell groceries online in the US attracted significant resources, made impressive technological advancements, and generated... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Failure; Food; Online Technology; Food and Beverage Industry; Web Services Industry

Web

Making Strategic Trade-offs - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness

customers. In every major value-adding step in the process of creating and selling home furnishing, IKEA has made different choices from the “traditional” home furnishings retailer. IKEA vs. Traditional Furniture Retailers IKEA, Sweden... View Details

07 Jul 2022
HBS Case

How a Multimillion-Dollar Ice Cream Startup Melted Down (and Bounced Back)

and in retail chains with lots and lots of stores, they use what are called co-packers, third-party factories, that will make ice cream to your specifications. That was always an option for Ample Hills.” Hiring a co-packer would have... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

Summer 2025
Article

Are ESG Improvements Recognized? Perspectives from the Public Sentiments

By: Shaolong Wu

While Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) increasingly guides investment management and corporate agendas nowadays, public reactions to firms' ESG performance remain under-studied. This paper fills this gap by investigating whether the public picks up firms' ESG... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Public Opinion; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Governance; Investment

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August 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Influencer-Led Brand Building: Hairitage and the McKnights

By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and James Palano

Longtime hairstyle influencer Mindy McKnight had been building her “Cute Girls Hairstyles” audience across numerous online platforms for nearly two decades. Brand incubator Maesa took an innovative approach to producing successful brands: identifying white space in the... View Details