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Making Money Selling the Long Tail Making a sale in today's world Amazon uses it. Netflix thinks it's great. eBay built a business on it. It works for TradeMe. And it will work for the retailers of Wanganui. First a definition: "The Long Tail dictates that products low in demand, when aggregated, make up a market share that exceeds the relatively small number of current best sellers" It has always been a truism that advertising causes demand. Advertise what you have and people will buy because they know it exists. But you cannot keep placing advertisements for a product in the Newspaper or on the Radio or TV day after day. There comes a point when the cost of advertising is more than the return made from selling. Advertising stops and demand ceases. The text book views on the life cycle of a product hold that when a product is introduced, demand for it is low, but with advertising, acceptance for the product grows and more people buy until demand ceases and the product goes into decline. This is a consequence of selling in what is known as the Second Wave Society. The Industrial society of mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation and entertainment. But as we enter into the Internet Age many of the traditional ways of marketing and selling are being revisited, some may say questioned as to, do they still hold true. And the life cycle of a product is one such law. What if the demand for the product was still there and people would buy, but they are unable to do so because they don't know it exists. What if, what was considered a decline was caused by something else? Quote "The lesson is that what we thought was a naturally sharp drop-off in demand after a certain point was actually just an artifact of the traditional costs of offering them." The retailer stops advertising because it cost too much to advertise given the smaller number of units that can be sold, a simple case of ROI. The product is still on the shelves and customers would buy if they knew it was there but for the retailer the cost of advertising the traditional way is not cost effective. All retailers have in their business some of "these", more of "those" and a few of "them". All products worthy of shelf space but low in demand because they are not advertised but what if a way was available to create a demand and move this stock. What if there was a cost effective way to advertise the small numbers of units to a greater audience and so improve the ROI and bottom line profit. As we move into the Third Wave Society a solution to the problem enters, the Internet. The technology of the Internet Age makes Long Tail Marketing a reality, it is about making dollars by selling more of the less. It is part of a balanced advertising strategy, balancing costs against return. If your return is greater using a particular media continue to use it, but always look to where you obtain your best return. In our opening paragraph we mentioned TradeMe. A New Zealand success story. eBay also a success worldwide. Both are Auction sites, is that the secret to success. On the surface it may appear so but Amazon and Netfix are not engaged in the auction business. So what is the common denominator. Quite simple really Providing people with a platform where they can go online, and find things they wish to buy. People on-line have money, they wish to buy. It is only a matter of the retailers placing on the Internet the products they have for sale in their shops. People wish to buy, so tell them what is available. When the consumer has the information they can visit the retailers shop and buy. Quite simple really. To reach the consumer a business must go where the consumers go.