Week 3- Podcast: "Gil and Frank Discuss the Long Tail"

This was a very interesting podcast giving an overview of the Long Tail theory and additional commentary from my class professors. The Long Tail theory basically says that the smaller items at the end of the selling heirarchy will start to generate more sales in the future and grow at a stronger rate than the top selling items. The professors went on to say that it will help companies to sell these items, because they will attract the additional sales generated from them and please customers by giving them larger selections and choice.

I think this is theory is very true and was constantly thinking of examples while I listened to the Podcast. The professors highlighted many media industry examples like rare CDs, books, and movies, but I thought of many other applications. I have searched the internet for many hard products to find products like a cheap card table designed to fit more than 4 people, all cloth or leather belts without metal buckles and retied figurines. Each of these items were considered to be part of the "long tail" because they were smaller selling items that most people aren't interested in. But all these items meant a lot to me and sites that had them, not only earned my business for that purchase, but intrigued me enough to want to come back in the future. Part of the success of the internet was its ability to have information on just about every possible topic, no matter how small it may seem. So it only seems logical to think consumers will also be able to find just about any product that they could want online. Personally, I think a lot of this long tail demand is being met by smaller, lesser known companies that specialize in hard to find products. Most consumers don't trust these companies as much as the larger ones they are familiar with, but they are so interested in the product, they are willing to "risk" trying out the new company. If the larger, more mainstream companies started selling more of these hard to find products, they could not only get consumers to by the smaller products, but easily sell them the larger selling products.

Overall, I think companies should take notice of the Long Tail theory and start to have larger selections, not just draw new customers, but to maintain the loyal consumer base they already have.