Antonio (Toni) Moreno is the Sicupira Family Associate Professor in the Technology and Operations Management Unit, teaching empirical technology and operations management. Before joining HBS, he was an associate professor in the Kellogg School of Management.
Professor Moreno uses data and empirical approaches to study operations management, with a main focus on retail. His primary aims include exploring operational consequences of innovative business models, addressing fundamental questions in operations strategy, and developing models to help firms make better operational decisions. Most of his work uses novel data sets that he has obtained through collaboration with companies or collected himself. Professor Moreno’s work has appeared in journals such as Management Science, Marketing Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Information Systems Research, and Sloan Management Review, and has been covered by several media outlets. He has also received the Wickham Skinner Early-Career Research Accomplishments Award from the Production and Operations Management Society.
Professor Moreno earned a B.Sc. in electrical engineering, an M.Sc. in industrial engineering, and an M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Technical University of Catalonia. He has an MA in statistics and a PhD in operations and information management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
In this article, we pursue two interconnected themes: the expansion of online-first retailers into offline stores that serve the purpose of “supercharging” customer value, and the transformation of the stores of offline-first retailers from fulfillment-dominant centers into experience-dominant centers, which simultaneously reduce store size and inventory while improving the customer experience. In doing so, we explain how offline-first retailers can benefit from mimicking the showroom concepts started by online-first retailers and why online-first retailers can benefit from opening more traditional stores.
Winner of the 2014 POMS Applied Research Challenge. Workshop on Information Systems Economics Overall Best Paper Award 2014
Omnichannel environments where customers shop online and offline at the same retailer are ubiquitous, and are deployed by online-first and traditional retailers alike. We focus on the relatively understudied domain of online-first retailers and the engagement of a key omnichannel tactic; specifically, introduction of showrooms (physical locations where customers can view and try products) in combination with online fulfillment that uses centralized inventory management. We ask whether, and if so, how, showrooms benefit the two most basic retail objectives: demand generation and operational efficiency. Using quasi-experimental data on showroom openings by WarbyParker.com, the leading and iconic online-first eyewear retailer, we find that showrooms: (1) increase demand overall and in the online channel as well; (2) generate operational spilloversto the other channels by attracting customers who, on average, have a higher cost-to-serve; (3) improve overall operational efficiency by increasing conversion in a sampling channel and by decreasing returns; and (4) amplify these demand and operational benefits in dealing with customers who have the most acute need for the firm’s products. Moreover, the effects we document strengthen with time as showrooms contribute not only to brand awareness but also to what we term channel awareness as well. We conclude by elaborating the underlying customer dynamics driving our findings and by offering implications for how online-first retailers might deploy omnichannel tactics.
