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- April 2021
- Article
Homing and Platform Responses to Entry: Historical Evidence from the U.S. Newspaper Industry
By: K. Francis Park, Robert Seamans and Feng Zhu
We examine how heterogeneity in customers’ tendencies to single-home or multi-home affects a platform’s competitive responses to new entrants in the market. We first develop a formal model to generate predictions about how a platform will respond. We then empirically...
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- April 2021
- Case
Coca-Cola: Preparing for the Next 100 Years
By: Cynthia A. Montgomery and James Weber
In early 2020, James Quincey, the 14th chair of the 133-year old The Coca-Cola Company, was in the midst of a years-long transformation of Coca-Cola from being the leading carbonated soft drink (CSD) beverage company into a total beverage company. The company’s...
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- March 2021
- Background Note
The Pandemic's Impact on the U.S. Food System
By: Jose B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred
This note is intended not as a comprehensive account but as a starting point for discussion about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the U.S. food system. Written in late 2020, the note describes, in part through the voices of industry leaders, how the pandemic...
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Keywords:
Agribusiness;
Risk and Uncertainty;
Risk Management;
Leadership;
Change Management;
Safety;
Health;
Health Pandemics;
Disruption;
Adaptation;
Supply Chain;
Supply Chain Management;
Retail Industry;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
Transportation Industry;
United States
- March 17, 2021
- Other Article
Beyond Pajamas: Sizing Up the Pandemic Shopper
By: Ayelet Israeli, Eva Ascarza and Laura Castrillo
A first look at how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted e-commerce apparel shopping in the US and the UK. Extensive analysis and interactive graphics utilizing millions of transactions.
While the pandemic is still playing out, our preliminary investigations suggests... View Details
While the pandemic is still playing out, our preliminary investigations suggests... View Details
Keywords:
Retail;
Retail Analytics;
Consumer;
Pandemic;
Covid;
Covid-19;
Apparel;
Ecommerce;
E-commerce;
Online Shopping;
Online Apparel;
Online Sales;
Returns;
Crm;
Customer Retention;
Customer Experience;
Customer Value;
Digital;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Customers;
Health Pandemics;
Consumer Behavior;
Customer Relationship Management;
Online Technology;
Behavior;
Retail Industry;
Apparel and Accessories Industry;
Technology Industry;
United States;
United Kingdom
- 2021
- Working Paper
Deregulation, Market Power, and Prices: Evidence from the Electricity Sector
By: Alexander MacKay and Ignacia Mercadal
When deciding whether to introduce market-based prices into a regulated market, a regulator faces the following tradeoff: profit incentives may reduce costs through the more efficient allocation of resources, but the presence of market power may lead to increased...
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- March 2021
- Case
Revlon: Surviving Covid-19
By: Kristin Mugford and Sarah Gulick
In October 2020, Revlon faced a crossroads. While it had been struggling with high levels of debt before COVID-19, the pandemic had caused it to go further into debt. Unlike other financial crises, many consumers had stopped buying skincare or cosmetics, and sales of...
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- 2021
- Working Paper
Information Spillovers in Experience Goods Competition
By: Zhuoqiong Charlie Chen, Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas
When experience goods compete, consuming one product can be informative about value for similar untried products. We study a two-period model of duopoly competition in markets that have this feature and where firms can price discriminate between consumers based on...
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- March, 2021
- Article
Tariff Passthrough at the Border and at the Store: Evidence from U.S. Trade Policy
By: Alberto Cavallo, Gita Gopinath, Brent Neiman and Jenny Tang
We use micro data collected at the border and the store to characterize the price impact of recent US trade policy on importers, exporters, and consumers. At the border, import tariff passthrough is much higher than exchange rate passthrough. Chinese exporters did not...
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Keywords:
Trade Policy;
Tariffs;
Exchange Rate Passthrough;
Economics;
Trade;
Policy;
Currency Exchange Rate;
Price;
United States
- March 2021
- Article
Active Choice, Implicit Defaults, and the Incentive to Choose
By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
Home-delivered prescriptions have no delivery charge and lower copayments than prescriptions picked up at a pharmacy. Nevertheless, when home delivery is offered on an opt-in basis, the take-up rate is only 6%. We study a program that makes active choice of either home...
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- March 2021
- Article
Assortment Rotation and the Value of Concealment
By: Kris J. Ferreira and Joel Goh
Assortment rotation—the retailing practice of changing the assortment of products offered to customers—has recently been used as a competitive advantage for both brick-and-mortar and online retailers. We focus on product categories where consumers may purchase multiple...
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- February 2021
- Case
White Claw: Defending Market Share as Competition Encroaches
By: Jill Avery
By the end of 2019, two brands accounted for 84% of hard seltzer sales, a segment that had recently taken the U.S. beer market by storm, growing from $3 million in 2015 to over $2.7 billion by the start of the summer of 2020. White Claw was the dominant market leader...
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Keywords:
Brand Management;
Alcoholic Beverages;
Beer/brewing Industry;
Brand Positioning;
Growth;
Competitive Positioning;
Consumer Products;
Beverage Industry;
Value Proposition;
Marketing;
Brands and Branding;
Competition;
Product Positioning;
Competitive Strategy;
Consumer Behavior;
Consumer Products Industry;
Food and Beverage Industry;
United States
- February 2021
- Case
Apple: Privacy vs. Safety (A)
By: Henry McGee, Nien-hê Hsieh and Christian Godwin
In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook debuted the iPhone 6S with enhanced security measures that enflamed a debate on privacy and public safety around the world. The iPhone 6S, amid a heightened concern for privacy following the 2013 revelation of clandestine U.S. surveillance...
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Keywords:
Iphone;
Encryption;
Data Privacy;
Corporate Social Responsibility And Impact;
Mobile Technology;
Civil Society Or Community;
Customers;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Decision Making;
Ethics;
Values and Beliefs;
Globalized Firms and Management;
Government and Politics;
National Security;
Law;
Law Enforcement;
Leadership;
Markets;
Safety;
Social Issues;
Technology;
Technology Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Telecommunications Industry;
Electronics Industry;
United States;
China;
Hong Kong
- February 2021
- Supplement
Apple: Privacy vs. Safety (B)
By: Henry McGee, Nien-hê Hsieh and Christian Godwin
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, Apple and Google partnered to develop a contract tracing application that would collect information about users infected with the disease and notify those who they had been in contact with. While Apple/Google’s...
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Keywords:
Iphone;
Encryption;
Data Privacy;
Customers;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Decision Making;
Ethics;
Values and Beliefs;
Globalized Firms and Management;
Government and Politics;
Health;
Health Pandemics;
Leadership;
Markets;
Safety;
Social Issues;
Technology;
Telecommunications Industry;
Technology Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Electronics Industry;
Health Industry;
United States;
Europe
- February 2021
- Case
SafeGraph: Selling Data as a Service
By: Ramana Nanda, Abhishek Nagaraj and Allison Ciechanover
Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on...
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- February 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
Shopify: The Conquest for Chinese E-Commerce
By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Avani Patel, Ariel Yang and Samantha Lin
In mid-2020, Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, faced a critical decision on how to time a potential move into the China market. Over the prior 15 years, his Canadian software-as-a-service company had grown from a small e-commerce solutions provider to a full-service...
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- February 2021
- Teaching Plan
Soofa: Displaying the Right Path?
By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Amy Klopfenstein
This teaching plan serves as a supplement to the case “Soofa: Displaying the Right Path?” HBS 820-098. The case explores the tension between two different financing and expansion plans for a startup, and explores issues related to business model pivots and industry...
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Keywords:
Business Ventures;
Business Model;
Business Plan;
Business Startups;
Entrepreneurship;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Judgments;
Ethics;
Geography;
Geopolitical Units;
Finance;
Investment;
Markets;
Market Entry and Exit;
Demand and Consumers;
Media;
Society;
Urban Development;
Sustainable Cities;
Technology;
Hardware;
Technology Platform;
Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Expansion;
Relationships;
Capital;
Venture Capital;
Advertising Industry;
Technology Industry;
Media and Broadcasting Industry;
North and Central America;
United States;
Massachusetts;
Cambridge
- February 2021
- Teaching Note
HP Instant Ink: (Self) Disrupting the Consumer Printing Market
By: Elie Ofek and Marco Bertini
- 2021
- Working Paper
Consuming Contests: Outcome Uncertainty and Spectator Demand for Contest-based Entertainment
By: Patrick J. Ferguson and Karim R. Lakhani
Contests that are designed to be consumed for entertainment by non-contestants are a fixture of economic, cultural and political life. In this paper, we examine whether individuals prefer to consume contests that have more uncertain outcomes. We look to...
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- February 2021 (Revised March 2021)
- Case
AptDeco: Circular Economy Furniture Marketplace
By: Ayelet Israeli and Jamie Merkrebs
AptDeco, a used furniture marketplace, was growing rapidly in the tri-state area. The co-founders were confident that the business model, financial position, and unit economics positioned AptDeco for scaling in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its...
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Keywords:
E-commerce;
E-commerce Strategy;
Mobile;
Digital Marketing;
Word-of-mouth;
Word-of-mouth Marketing;
Word Of Mouth;
Internet Marketing;
Growth Strategy;
Platform;
Platforms;
Two Sided Markets;
Two-sided Market;
Two-sided Marketplace;
Two-sided Markets;
Two-sided Network;
Black Entrepreneurs;
Black Leadership;
African Americans;
Circular;
Peer-to-peer Markets;
Furniture Industry;
Furniture;
Growth Hacking;
Monetization Strategy;
Growth Management;
Marketing Strategy;
Entrepreneurship;
Market Platforms;
Marketing Channels;
Online Advertising;
Consumer Behavior;
Acquisition;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Two-Sided Platforms;
Customer Focus and Relationships;
Retail Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Technology Industry;
Web Services Industry;
United States;
North America;
New York (city, NY);
New York (state, US)
- February 2021
- Case
Rolex SA
By: Doug J. Chung
Rolex SA was one of the most successful watchmakers in the world. In recent years, the global demand for Rolex watches, especially the stainless-steel sports models, had dramatically increased, resulting in a supply shortage worldwide. The shortage in supply further...
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