Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(666)
- Faculty Publications (218)
- February 2017
- Case
Dick's Sporting Goods
By: Rajiv Lal, Jose B. Alvarez and Matthew G. Preble
Edward Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), faced a rapidly changing sporting goods landscape in October 2016. Two large competitors—The Sports Authority and Sport Chalet—had folded earlier that year, and DKS had to contend with increasingly robust... View Details
Keywords: Sporting Goods; Retail; Employees; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Product Marketing; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior; Product; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Internet and the Web; E-commerce; Retail Industry; United States; Pennsylvania
- January 2017 (Revised October 2021)
- Case
Delivering the Goods at Shippo
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Jeffrey F. Rayport and Olivia Hull
Laura Behrens Wu, CEO of software start-up Shippo, prepares her pitch for a Series A funding round following a successful seed round. Customer adoption of Shippo’s e-commerce dashboard application, which allows small and medium retailers to compare delivery rates... View Details
Keywords: Application Program Interface; API; API Strategy; Customer Cohorts; Churn; Retention; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Business Startups; Strategy; Transition; Customer Focus and Relationships; Technological Innovation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Valuation; Shipping Industry; Technology Industry; Retail Industry; San Francisco; California; United States
- January 2017 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Paytm: Building a Payments Network
By: Sunil Gupta, Das Narayandas and Rachna Tahilyani
By January 2017, Paytm, a mobile payments company that started in 2010, became India’s largest mobile payments platform with over 142 million users and $5 billion valuation. Could Paytm become a $100 billion company its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma envisioned it be? View Details
- January 2017
- Case
Expanding Ecommerce at Technos
By: Thales Teixeira, Rohit Deshpandé, Ruth Costas and Priscilla Zogbi
Technos was the market leader in the Brazilian watch market. Its CEO had made a firm commitment to evolve the company’s marketing and commercial practices by focusing less on pushing product to retail clients and more on branding to end consumers to pull watches from... View Details
- December 2016
- Case
thredUP: Think Secondhand First
By: Thomas Eisenmann, Allison Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga
In the fall of 2016, the management team at thredUP, the largest U.S. online retailer of second hand clothing, is deciding whether to expand into international markets. Over the past 12 months the 7-year-old startup, which had raised over $130 million in venture... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
MyTime
By: Juliane Begenau and Robin Greenwood
Ethan Anderson, the CEO of San Francisco–based e-commerce company MyTime, must decide on the company's growth strategy. MyTime’s first product was a website and mobile app that offered consumers a convenient way to book appointments with local merchants throughout the... View Details
- September 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Angie's List: Ratings Pioneer Turns 20
By: Robert J. Dolan and Ayelet Israeli
In 1995, before people “googled” or “yelped,” Angela Hicks (HBS, 2000) was establishing her Angie’s List as a pioneer in the accumulation and dissemination of consumer rating information. Hicks focused on the home repair and maintenance market and, as she put it,... View Details
Keywords: Pricing; Pricing Strategy; Services; Product Line Management; Growth; Conjoint Analysis; Market Research; Freemium; Growth Strategy; Two Sided Markets; Ecommerce; Platform; Platform Business; Platform Businesses; Platform Strategy; Platforms; Platforms And Ecosystems; Business Model; Internet and the Web; Business Growth and Maturation; Growth and Development Strategy; Price; Strategy; Digital Platforms; E-commerce; Service Industry; United States
- June 2016
- Teaching Note
Relating to Peapod
By: Jill Avery and Susan Fournier
This case concerns the topics of relationship marketing, customer acquisition and retention, brand loyalty, service failure and recovery, new product introduction, and the use of consumer ethnography to study consumer behavior. Specifically, the case explores the... View Details
- April 2016
- Teaching Note
Flipkart: Transitioning to a Marketplace Model
By: Sunil Gupta and Das Narayandas
In 2015, Sachin and Binny Bansal, co-founders of India's largest e-tailer, Flipkart, announced that the company would switch to a marketplace model and move its logistics arm into a separate company. At the time of the announcement, Snapdeal already claimed to be... View Details
- Other Article
Online Discounting: Who is Leading the Race to the Bottom?
By: Ayelet Israeli, Eric Anderson and Anne Coughlan
A short review of the finidings in: Israeli, Ayelet, Eric Anderson, and Anne Coughlan. "Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets." Marketing Science 35, no. 4 (July–August 2016): 539–564. View Details
Keywords: Pricing; Price Policies; Pricing Policies; Discounting; Retailing; Retailing Industry; Minimum Advertised Price; Ecommerce; E-Commerce Strategy; Price; Distribution Channels; Distribution; Digital Marketing; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Technology Industry; Advertising Industry; United States
- November 2015 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Flipkart (A): Transitioning to a Marketplace Model
By: Das Narayandas, Sunil Gupta and Rachna Tahilyani
In 2015, Sachin and Binny Bansal, co-founders of India’s largest e-commerce company, are wondering if it is time to move from a hybrid model to a full marketplace. While Amazon runs a hybrid model, Alibaba operates a marketplace. In addition, Flipkart has been losing... View Details
- Article
Case Study: Can Retailers Win Back Shoppers Who Browse then Buy Online?
By: Thales S. Teixeira and Sunil Gupta
This case study discusses the options that brick-and-mortar retailers can use to combat the negative consequences of 'showrooming.' View Details
- 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
- July 2015 (Revised July 2016)
- Case
SF Express: From Delivery to E-Commerce
By: Feng Zhu and David Lane
Shunfeng Express (SF), China's leading express delivery firm, in May 2014 opened the first 500 of several thousand Heike stores, which allowed consumers to buy and try out SF's own e-commerce offerings, in addition to other services. As an example of China's... View Details
Keywords: Shunfeng Express; Heike; Express Delivery; Alibaba; Tencent; JD.com; China; O2O; Logistics; Strategy; Service Delivery; China
- June 2015 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
Accor: Strengthening the Brand with Digital Marketing
By: Jill Avery, Chekitan S. Dev and Peter O'Connor
Accor, the world's leading hotel operator with a portfolio of fourteen hospitality brands (including Sofitel and Novotel) in 92 countries, prided itself on living up to its motto, "To open new frontiers in hospitality." Accor was indeed contemplating how to do just... View Details
- June 2015
- Teaching Note
Quincy Apparel
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Lisa C. Mazzanti
- February 2015 (Revised March 2022)
- Case
Quincy Apparel (A)
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Lisa Mazzanti
Quincy Apparel designs, manufactures and sells work apparel for young professional women that offers the fit and feel of high-end brands at a lower price. In late 2012, Quincy's cofounders are debating how to approach a crucial board meeting. Their seed-stage startup... View Details
- 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
- January 2015 (Revised October 2016)
- Case
onefinestay: Building a Luxury Experience in the Sharing Economy
By: Jill Avery, Anat Keinan and Liz Kind
onefinestay was a two-sided marketplace that offered high-end home rentals to travelers who sought a more authentic and local experience than a typical upscale hotel might provide. After five years of rapid growth, it was time to do a comprehensive analysis of the... View Details
Keywords: Luxury Goods; Brand Building; Brand Management; Hospitality; Hotels; Digital Marketing; Brand Positioning; Luxury Service; Airbnb; Sharing Economy; Collaborative Consumption; Disruptive Business Model; Travel; Alternatives To Hotel; Branding; Customer Service; Exceeding Consumer Expectations; Client Acquisition; Reputation Management; Word Of Mouth; 2-way Business Model; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Luxury; Disruption; Business Model; Entrepreneurship; E-commerce; Accommodations Industry; Tourism Industry; Travel Industry; United Kingdom
- January 2015 (Revised October 2018)
- Case
Nasty Gals Do It Better
By: David Collis, Diane Chang, Matthew Shaffer and Ashley Hartman
In 2006, Sophia Amoruso started Nasty Gal, an eBay boutique selling vintage clothes. With a strong sense of style and personality, Amoruso poured herself into building the brand and developing relationships with her customers—typically the slightly edgy 18–24 year old.... View Details
Keywords: Business Growth; Brand Management; Online Retail; Clothing; Apparel; Expansion; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Management; Marketing Strategy; Strategic Planning; Social Media; E-commerce; Digital Marketing; Retail Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States