Zola - The Case Centre

By continuing to use our site you consent to the use of cookies as described in our privacy policy unless you have disabled them.
You can change your cookie settings at any time but parts of our site will not function correctly without them.

Case

Reference no. E623

Subject category: Entrepreneurship

Authors: George Foster (Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University); Sara Rosenthal (Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University)

Published by: Stanford Business School

Originally published in: 2017

Version: 1 June 2017

Length: 22 pages

Data source: Field research

Topics: Strategic growth; e-Commerce; Wedding registry; Co-founders; Entrepreneurs; Retail

Share a link: https://casecent.re/p/146815

| No reviews for this item

View our pricing guide or login to see prices.

Abstract

The case describes the journey of Zola, an online wedding registry designed to greatly improve the clunky and impersonal wedding registry process. With innovative features such as group gifting, scheduled delivery, and honeymoon donations, Zola was described as the registry for Millenials. As the company achieved significant traction and looked to scale, it had to choose from three distinct strategic growth paths to pursue: 1) become the go-to registry site for all major life events; 2) become the online home department store for Millenials; 3) become the premier all things wedding website. As well, the CEO and her team needed to decide whether and how to raise capital in the context of this strategic decision.

Industries:

e-Commerce; Wedding registry