Harvard's Anita Elberse: Forget the "Long Tail"

•  
  tillmann07/01/08 Report as spam
  1

  Interesting article with relevance to our products. What about Amazon?

  I read this article with some interest as we have an ongoing discussion in our company, whether to focus on the top sellers only or increase our coverage of products even if these don't get a lot of sales.
  What do people think about Amazon then? Should they focus more on pushing their top sellers or is increasing your product range more important? Does anybody have other examples?

•  
  Faxmebeer07/02/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: Harvard's Anita Elberse: Forget the

  Perhaps I misunderstand the long tail theory. My reading has been that by increasing scope, one can earn on the residual business created by the primary product. I've never taken this to mean that a business should focus on obscurity, but rather that businesses should look for potential continued selling opportunities. For instance, a car dealership chain is better off (as demonstrated by the successes of some of the dominant players) providing their own warranty services rather than using a third party. The same car dealer can sell wheels, stereos, credit life insurance, and so on. It's not that aftermarket goods are obscure, they're just a residual of the primary activity (automotive sales) that dealers long let the aftermarket providers capture.
  
  The long tail has seemed to me an overly complex way of re-explaining vertical integration for the service sector.