Publications

Article

Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-Channel Retailers

By: Alberto Cavallo

Online prices are increasingly used for measurement and research applications, yet little is known about their relation to prices in physical stores, where most retail transactions occur. I conduct the first large-scale comparison of prices simultaneously collected... View Details

Keywords: Online Prices; Offline Prices; Multi-channel Retailers; Price; Internet and the Web; Measurement and Metrics; Retail Industry

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August 2018
Case

Digital Transformation at Brazilian Retailer Magazine Luiza

By: Thales S. Teixeira, Leandro A. Guissoni and Tania Modesto Veludo-de-Oliveira

By late 2017, Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza's CEO was convinced that the company could significantly grow sales and accomplish its aspirations of digital transformation. What was unclear in his mind was whether he should act as a tech company and grow as fast as... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Ecommerce; Retailing; Brazil; Bricks And Mortar; Pricing; Customer Lifetime Value; Growth and Development Strategy; Internet and the Web; Transformation; Decision Choices and Conditions; Retail Industry; Brazil

2021
Working Paper

The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers

By: Ron Berman and Ayelet Israeli

Does the adoption of descriptive analytics impact online retailer performance, and if so, how? We use the synthetic difference-in-differences method to analyze the staggered adoption of a retail analytics dashboard by more than 1,500 e-commerce websites, and we find an... View Details

Keywords: Descriptive Analytics; Big Data; Synthetic Control; E-commerce; Online Retail; Difference-in-differences; Martech; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science; Performance; Retail Industry

SSRN

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November–December 2022
Article

The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers

By: Ron Berman and Ayelet Israeli

Does the adoption of descriptive analytics impact online retailer performance, and if so, how? We use the synthetic difference-in-differences method to analyze the staggered adoption of a retail analytics dashboard by more than 1,500 e-commerce websites, and we find an... View Details

Keywords: Descriptive Analytics; Big Data; Synthetic Control; E-commerce; Online Retail; Difference-in-differences; Martech; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science; Performance; Marketing; Retail Industry

01 Oct 2000
News

Internet Tsunami

Hiroshi Mikitani (MBA '93) is the founder, president, and CEO of Rakuten, Japan's leading online shopping destination. He believes that because the Internet allows merchants to circumvent the many intermediaries who jack up prices in... View Details

Keywords: Nonstore Retailers; Nonstore Retailers

18 Apr 2005
Research & Ideas

Prosper with Multi-Channel Retailing

privacy of their homes. "There's a lot of customers—male and female—who would prefer not to go to the store," she said. And, of course, "Availability is 24/7; it's always there and you can shop any time." Vobejda said the View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette; Retail; Retail

2018
Working Paper

Need for Speed: The Impact of Website Performance on Online Retail

By: Santiago Gallino, Nil Karacaoglu and Antonio Moreno

The share of e-commerce sales is rapidly increasing and so are the associated losses generated by website outages and slow websites. We leverage novel retail and website performance data to investigate the impact of website performance on online sales. This question is... View Details

Keywords: Online Retail; Quasi-experiments; Abandonment; Synthetic Control; Internet and the Web; Performance; Service Operations

SSRN

17 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Quantifying the Economic Impact of the Internet

Internet provides to the rest of the U.S. economy is estimated at $175 billion. It comprises $20 billion of advertising services, $85 billion of retail transactions (net of cost of goods), and $70 billion of... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Advertising; Publishing

29 May 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Crafting Integrated Multichannel Retailing Strategies

Keywords: by Jie Zhang, Paul Farris, Tarun Kushwaha, John Irvin, Thomas J. Steenburgh & Barton Weitz; Retail

10 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Retailing Revolution: Category Killers on the Brink

increased at an impressive pace in the early 2000s even though Internet sales in the United States grew dramatically. Retail sales advanced from $2.87 trillion to almost $4 trillion between 1999 and 2007.... View Details

Keywords: by Rajiv Lal & Jose B. Alvarez; Retail

May–June 2023
Article

Need for Speed: The Impact of In-Process Delays on Customer Behavior in Online Retail

By: Santiago Gallino, Nil Karacaoglu and Antonio Moreno

The impact of delays has been widely studied in various offline services. The focus of this study is online services, and we explore the impact of in-process delays—measured by website speed—on customer behavior. We leverage novel retail and website speed data to... View Details

Keywords: Online Retail; Quasi-experiments; Abandonment; Synthetic Control; E-commerce; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Policy; Retail Industry

Find at Harvard

December 1996 (Revised July 2002)
Background Note

Note on Marketing and the Internet

By: John A. Deighton, Alison Berkley and John Barabino

The World Wide Web is new, a comprehensive marketing environment. It is a medium for direct marketing, for retailing and distribution, for the delivery of service and product elements, for marketing research, and even for posting and testing prices. This note explores... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Internet and the Web; Digital Marketing

Find at Harvard

26 Nov 2012
Research & Ideas

New Winners and Losers in the Internet Economy

publishers and retailers to social networks and gaming sites. Job growth on the Internet stands in sharp contrast to the US economy as a whole, which has suffered from high unemployment for years. The report... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Publishing

October 2000 (Revised November 2005)
Case

Li & Fung (A): Internet Issues

By: F. Warren McFarlan and Fred Young

This case looks at the issues facing a Hong Kong-based trading company, which links hundreds of factories in India and Asia with major customers like Gap and the Limited in Europe and in the United States. The company has recently launched a dot-com operation to allow... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Internet and the Web; Multinational Firms and Management; Distribution Channels; Logistics; Networks; Markets; Supply Chain; Retail Industry; Hong Kong; India; Europe; United States

November 1999 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Webvan: Groceries on the Internet

By: John A. Deighton and Kayla Bakshi

What are the prospects for grocery shopping on the Web? This case invites a comparison of seven business models, with particular emphasis on Webvan. Why does the investment community value Webvan at $7.8 billion after less than six months of operating experience, and... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Experience and Expertise; Investment; Information; Marketing; Distribution Channels; Service Delivery; Cognition and Thinking; Internet and the Web; Retail Industry; Retail Industry

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Retail Reaches a Tipping Point—Which Stores Will Survive?

clear: many retail segments are under assault by cheaper, more convenient retailers selling online. "The surprising thing is that despite the success of lots of big businesses in having developed View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Retail

March 2017 (Revised March 2022)
Case

Flashion: Art vs. Science in Fashion Retailing

By: Kris Ferreira and Karim R. Lakhani

Kate Wilson, retail analytics manager at Flashion, a fashion flash-sale site, is tasked with developing analytics to optimize pricing for first-exposure products on the site. Many in the industry have relied on years of experience and intuition to determine pricing—can... View Details

Keywords: Analytics; Pricing; Data; Service Operations; Forecasting and Prediction; Internet and the Web; Technology Adoption; Mathematical Methods; Decision Making; E-commerce; Retail Industry; Retail Industry; United States