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By working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to conduct a marketing environmental analysis to aid strategic decisions; analyse the first-mover advantages of a retail firm and how these can be sustained; comprehend online retail business models and the challenges therein; understand the trade-offs of online/offline retail experiences specific to an emerging market’s beauty and personal care sector; conceptualize and formulate actionable growth strategies that balance the individual and collective requirements of brick and mortar and retail e-commerce environments.

The case is set in 2022, right after Nykaa – the pioneer of beauty and wellness e-commerce platforms in India makes a blockbuster stock market debut in 2021. Starting in 2012 with a disruptive online model for selling beauty and wellness products online in India, Nykaa had come a long way with expansions in physical retail and other segments such as fashion. The firm, which initially aimed to be a virtual store, is now thinking of aggressively expanding in the brick-and-mortar retail space as it opens its 85th retail outlet.

Falguni S. Nayar, founder and CEO of Nykaa, wanted to roll out 300 physical stores targeting 100 cities in India in the next couple of years. She aspired to establish Nykaa as a category leader as the “Indian Sephora” in the beauty and personal care market. Nykaa’s first-mover advantage in the online beauty and personal care marketplace worked well to establish it as a brand with positive endorsements by digital shoppers that enhanced the investment potential with potential financiers. However, the pandemic had brought every physical retailer to the online platform. Most e-commerce platforms dealing in grocery to lifestyle had added personal care products to their existing merchandise.

Additionally, several start-ups had ventured into the online marketplace. Online was a cluttered marketplace with little to no differentiation. In this bloodbath, would the first-mover advantage for Nykaa in the online space still count as a competitive advantage? Nayar was all set to expand Nykaa’s physical presence aggressively. The concern was that the beauty and personal care segment had also moved online as a function of long stay-at-home periods. In the post-pandemic times, would the customer indeed revert to brick and mortar once again? Nykaa was also into product formulations, but so was every big and small player in the space. What was the differentiated winning formula for the consumer’s heart and mind?

The case can be effectively used in foundation courses in marketing and a wide range of specialized courses on marketing management (core/foundation course), retail marketing and e-commerce/digital marketing and e-commerce for B-school learners. The complex decision points faced by an innovative e-commerce start-up firm on its road to market expansion make the case suitable for niche courses such as Marketing for Start-ups. Moreover, learners in executive MBA programs with considerable experience can benefit from the case analysis that balances a growing retail company’s long- and short-run objectives.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

After reading and discussing the case, the participants would be able to: apply 7S and VRIO framework for online furniture retail; evaluate the profitability of horizontal versus vertical marketplaces for selling furniture online; articulate the challenges faced by online furniture retailers; discuss the applicability of technology to enhance customer experience in online furniture retail; and discuss the omni-channel strategy which online furniture companies can adopt.

Although furniture has traditionally been an unorganized category, the online furniture platforms have been on an upward curve since past few years. Digitization of economy and usage of smartphones to access internet had given a thrust to online purchases. This case on Wakefit Innovations Private Limited is intended to provide the readers with the business and marketing insights of selling furniture using online platform. The readers will be able to understand how retailing furniture using e-commerce is full of challenges and how various marketing activities have helped Wakefit improve their customer base. The readers can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of horizontal versus vertical e-commerce marketplaces and various challenges associated with online furniture retailing. Whether Wakefit should continue setting up experience centres and the benefits that could accrue by usage of virtual reality, augmented reality and data analytics are additional dimensions which can be discussed by the readers. The case will benefit the professionals in understanding the challenges and marketing strategies used by online furniture retailers and the same can be replicated by other players in this sector.

This case is suitable for students enrolled for full credit course on e-commerce at post graduate level. The case can be discussed towards the middle of the course once the students have studied different formats of e-commerce marketplace.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The case is written using secondary data sources (namely, research documents, press information, journal articles and published interviews). Publicly declared company information has further been leveraged to augment case facts. All information sources have been duly acknowledged in the reference section.

The case is written in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the Indian retail industry, revolving around scenarios in which a multinational retailer has to decide on its long- and short-term strategy in such an economic crisis. The case story has been developed around Marks and Spencer’s retail venture in the Indian market. With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting business at various levels, with countries moving to lock down and economies shrinking to recessionary levels, one of the worst affected sectors is retail. The teaching case builds upon Mark and Spencer’s initial decision of not entering and extending its food/grocery business in India. While it remained a dominant player in Indian fashion retail for almost two decades, it needs to re-think its decision of entering food retail owing to a pandemic situation affecting its offline sales/store footfall and increasing competition from global fashion brands such as Zara and H&M that had flooded the Indian fashion retail sector. The case provides a context for students to perform environmental factor and competitor analysis for a sector, with special focus on decision making in a changing crisis scenario.

This case could be used in undergraduate and MBA classroom programme, across subjects such as retail management, marketing management, international business, international business environment and strategic business management. This case fits while discussing topics such as business environmental factors, competitor analysis, decision-making under crisis, market entry decision, omnichannel retail strategy, consumer behaviour and brand management.

To enable the students to appreciate the importance of the retail business environment and identification of opportunities set in the context of an emerging market. To make students understand how a value proposition (product) is crafted in a retail organisation. To introduce the technique of developing a service blueprint for designing the retail consumption experience. To induce students to analyse on what criteria should retail business models be evaluated. To introduce the students to the concept of omnichannel retail strategy.

The case is about a value-retail chain We Mart India facing the sudden lockdown situation in April 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic hitting India. Shailesh Mehta, the Chief Operating Officer of We Mart is wondering what he should do post the lockdown to bring back the retail chain to its pre-Covid fast-paced growth of 25% YOY in June 2019. We Mart focussed on physical stores as a part of its strategy with an emphasis on the in-store experience. The company catered to the aspirations in fashion for the youth through a series of fashion apparel and accessories in Tiers 2 and 3 cities. The company had grown successfully in two decades and had expansion plans for 2020, which now seemed hazy because of this unpredicted biological disruption impacting businesses. Mehta’s worries were intensified by the change in the consumer trend that was witnessing a shift from offline to online. He wondered about how to incorporate this change and also realign the corporate growth plans in amidst of a challenging situation. To add to his woes were thoughts about established competitors online already apart from the existing offline ones. Research methods: This case is based on primary and secondary data gathered through interviews and publicly available secondary sources. The name of the company and protagonist have been disguised.

The case is suitable for post-graduate (masters in buisness administration) level courses on retail management. The length of the case enables the participants to even read in the class.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing

After a successful run for many years as a resilient consumer electronics giant, Best Buy was under intense pressure at the end of 2014. Even as competitors like Circuit City melted away, Best Buy had been able to withstand the onslaught of online behemoth Amazon and discount retailers like Target and Walmart. However, its competitive position was threatened as online shopping became more popular, particularly among millennial customers.

With a new leadership team, Best Buy had recently undertaken bold initiatives to expand and refine its online presence and position itself for success. These initiatives had produced encouraging results, but Best Buy needed to do more to stem the loss of market share to Amazon and to become more relevant to millennial customers. To address these challenges, Best Buy approached the Kellogg School of Management to solicit ideas from student teams by sponsoring a Business Challenge competition. The teams came up with several strategic initiatives. Best Buy needed to evaluate these initiatives on two criteria: First, how well did these initiatives leverage Best Buy's privileged physical assets (stores, salespeople, and Geek Squad services staff) to create a winning customer experience? Second, how effective would these initiatives be in attracting and retaining millennial customers?

area E-Business; Corporate Strategy; Strategic Management; Operation Management.

level/applicability Senior undergraduate; MBA; EMBA.

overview After development for 10 years, JD was now China’s second largest business-to-customer (B2C) e-retailer and the largest in self-operated sector. It was September 2015 when Liu Qiangdong was deciding whether to persist with JD’s self-operated model and the heavy investment in the self-built logistics system. JD’s business model had been functioning well. However, as JD grew bigger and bigger, it became too expensive to expand its logistics system. JD had not made a profit since it raised funds from investors. Liu had to come up with a good proposal before the next monthly meeting to convince them that JD would finally overtake its biggest rival, Alibaba which ran on a different business model. In addition, JD was exploiting the rural and the global markets, as well as a new business in internet finance. Facing challenges and dilemmas, should JD persist with its model? How could Liu align short-term profitability with long-run development? How could JD overcome attacks from Alibaba and other competitors?

learning outcomes This case is appropriate for courses in e-business and strategy, particularly those with a strong focus on doing e-business in emerging markets (e.g. China). After studying the case, students should be able to: understand the e-commerce market in China; understand business models and key strategies of e-retailers; identify and analyse the pros and cons of the self-operated business model and self-built logistics system in e-commerce; learn how to evaluate performance, strategies and business models of e-commerce companies; and extract key trends in the market and compare different strategies.

materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes are as follows: understanding online, traditional and omnichannel retail and the challenges and benefits of each method; evaluating the effect of consumer buying behaviour on a company’s growth strategy; assessing the effect of changing industry dynamics and technology on consumer behaviour; and understanding the role of consistent customer experience across different retail mediums.

This case looks at Yuppiechef, a successful e-commerce business, and their move from “clicks to bricks” with the introduction of retail stores. Founder and CEO of Yuppiechef, Andrew Smith, shares the current business status and considers how to maintain the brand’s culture with the growth of retail and being an omnichannel pioneer.

The primary target audience for this teaching case is postgraduate business students, especially students of digital marketing, strategy and e-commerce. This teaching case is intended to be used as case study in postgraduate business programmes such as Master of Business Administration (MBA), a specialist masters’ programme such as MM (Entrepreneurship), post-graduate diploma in management (PGDip), as well as selected executive education programmes.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

E-commerce.

The case study is specific to the marketing demographics of online Indian shoppers and therefore, the inter-relationship between certain customer requirements and design elements and the relative importance of items in the latter may not follow the same pattern elsewhere.

At a time when e-commerce is booming in India and when online retailers are posting multifold year-on-year growth, it becomes increasingly important to identify the factors pertaining to online stores which can influence the buying behavior of consumers. This case aims to explore such factors relevant to businesses as well as consumers so as to enable the next generation of leaders in online retail business to gain maximally. It deals with critical design characteristics of online retail stores in India which can prove crucial to their success. These characteristics are manifestations of various customer requirements. Two surveys are conducted to establish a hierarchy of design elements and quantify the inter-relationships between customer requirements and design characteristics. This is followed by leads as to which factors may or may not have contributed toward the declining sales volume of an e-commerce start-up, namely, E-Bazaar.

The learning objectives of the case include: the study of design characteristics with respect to their relative importance; the analysis of the degree of relationships between the design characteristics and customer requirements; and the interpretation of real-life signs in taking strategic business decisions in the field of e-commerce. The case aims to prepare a new breed of leaders in the e-commerce sector with a good level of relevant business acumen to help them make informed strategic choices.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

The case study aims to provide students with an understanding of the challenges businesses face expanding into the home market after having an international presence through exports. It also throws light on operations in an emerging market economy – both rural and urban. The key objectives are to understand the leather footwear business operation in India, understand the challenges of expanding business in India, analyse strategies adopted to sustain and compete in India and identify the possible distribution strategies for the leather footwear business in India.

The case study focuses on Tata International Limited’s (TIL) leather and leather products business in India. The leather and leather products division was present in India since 1973 (Anand, 2020) and exported to more than 35 countries across the world (Anand, 2020). TIL did not want to miss the opportunity available in India and planned to expand its leather footwear business in the country. The company opened retail outlets in major Indian cities and an experience store in Dewas (Madhya Pradesh) in 2019. It aimed for a domestic presence along with the existing export business. However, the biggest challenge that was in front of V. Muthukumaran, head of leather products division at TIL, was how to go ahead with the idea of domestic expansion (Anand, 2020). Should the company expand the market through sister companies (Westside and Tata CliQ) in India? How and in what way should TIL plan for going through Westside and Tata CLiQ? Should Muthukumaran think of either the brick-and-mortar route or the online route or both?

This case study is designed for use in undergraduate and graduate early-stage programmes. This case study is primarily designed for use in Master of Business Administration and/or Bachelor of Business Administration programmes. The case study is ideal for courses on understanding the expansion in the domestic market, strategy, retail and international marketing. The teaching note discusses theoretical frameworks such as external environment analysis and SWOT analysis to devise distribution strategies. The case study mapped the distribution channel and decision alternatives for the company.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

This case focuses on valuation using various methods to price a firm. Students attempting this case should know the basics of how to value a company using discounted cash flow, comparable multiples and comparable transactions. Students will need to calculate the weighted average cost of capital using comparable companies and the capital asset pricing model and determine differences in value created by an acquisition vs a leveraged buyout (LBO). The case also discusses qualitative issues in mergers, such as fit between target and acquirer, integration issues, potential high debt from LBO.

This case was library-researched, using Amazon and Whole Foods public filings and business press papers.

Whole Foods Markets received a buyout offer from Amazon. Whole Foods could solicit offers from other firms, including firms more directly in the grocery business. Whole Foods also considered a management buyout or purchase by a private equity firm. Whole Foods had underperformed, with a falling stock price and reduced profitability. Amazon’s bid was attractive, a premium of about 40 per cent over Whole Foods’ pre-merger stock price. Whole Foods also wanted to consider issues such as culture. Whole Foods’ strategy was to sell organic foods at premium prices, while Amazon was a retail discounter with a largely online business.

This case is appropriate for graduate students at the end of their introductory course or for graduate or undergraduate students in a corporate finance elective, particularly a merger/restructuring elective. The case has been used in an advanced undergraduate finance elective, with a team presenting the case to the class, with remaining students in the class required to write case summaries and questions for the presenting group.