Categories: Articles

Amazon's Ever-Growing Long Tail

This is less about the tail making more money than the head.

Chris Anderson‘s debut business book, The Long Tail – Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, came out in 2004 with one simple concept: companies could make significant profits from selling small volumes of hard-to-find products to many customers instead of only selling large numbers of a handful of popular items. The theory of The Long Tail is that the total sales of these non-hit products could outsell those of the few popular items. Whether or not this has crystallized is not the point. Because of the Internet, companies can now carry an endless amount of inventory as they’re no longer relegated to the limitations of a physical store’s square footage.

Amazon is a great example of the long tail at work.

If you’ve been playing along at home, you already know how much love I have (and have always had) for Amazon. I’m also a massive fan of obscure content, so the Internet provides a constant flow of unique and niche content coupled with unique and niche products. From rare books to hard-to-find electronics, it’s hard to beat Amazon’s impressive play of the long tail. This was pushed even further this past week when Amazon launched the "Never Before on DVD" store, which offers more than two thousand titles from companies like Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures and more. Where else do you think you’re going to score a DVD copy of Man From Atlantis: Complete TV Movies Collection (Remastered!)?

Long live the long tail.

This is just another shift in the ever-changing and constantly evolving retail channel. It’s not a question as to whether or not there is a mass market for anything anymore. We’re quickly moving to a very unique moment in time when customized products are becoming a cost-effective reality for mass merchant. Will Amazon’s "Never Before on DVD" store be the next evolution of online video or movies? Probably not, because it’s not about big hits and blockbusters so much as it is about helping people find those rare gems or creating a whole new level of movie discovery.

Regardless, it’s moments like these that give me a whole new appreciation for the power of technology, the Internet, connectivity and delivering what consumers want.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.