Case Solving: How to structurally manage cannibalization for e-commerce

First of all, it is difficult to help you with just two sentences of information. I also suggest that you should think on your feet on the issue and then book a coaching session.

That said, my overall suggestion is to use first-principle thinking asking yourself some questions (just explanatory and not comprehensive) such as

• Which is the e-commerce overall strategy? Are they pursuing the best price for the end customer (like Amazon)?
• If/How does the e-commerce sponsors products?
• What are the concrete differences between distributors/sellers and their products?
• What usually makes a product oversell the competitor's in a competitive market?

Once you have answers or some reasoning on the above we can discuss it.

Best, M

a) 2-3 questions to clarify type of business(products or customers), if only managing cannibalization as a lever is in scope, and - ideally also objectives.

b) assmuing they mean customers switching to competitors' products and only addressing that is in scope - very narrow scope, then you could structure the case as follows: understanding 

- drivers when customers switch and their impact on the business

- measures to reduce the switching

- measures to still benefit from rest of customers who do switch

Of course there a many ways to structure this :).

Best regards,

Charlotte

Hi there,

This is exactly what coaching is for :)

Feel free to book a session and we can work through this case (amongst many other things)!

If you'd like me to create a framework for this, I need answers to the following:

1. What is our actual business (what do we sell?)
2. What type of cannibalization are we worried about?
3. What is our objective here (maintain profits, stay alive, outlast competition, grow revenues, etc.)
4. How are we currently setup as a business (how do we sell)?

There's not enough context to solve this.

What is exactly the problem with cannibalization? Why / How is it a problem for the e-commerce platform?

Hi there, 

as Pedro said, it is impossible to give you solution as we don't see the case, remember predefined frameworks doesn't work, you have to create a framework for this particular case. 

Lucie

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