Learn in the textbookE-Commerce Business Models and Strategic Concepts
DefinitionThe long tail (ロングテール) is the idea that niche products, each selling only a few units, can add up to a large share of total sales when a seller stocks a huge range of them and keeps selling.
ExplanationThe name comes from a chart of products ranked by sales, where a long line of low-selling items stretches out like a tail behind a few best sellers (the head). Physical stores have limited shelf space and tend to favor best sellers, but EC keeps storage and display costs low, so it can carry the items in the tail too.
AnalogyEach piggy bank holds only a little change, but line up hundreds of them and the total becomes a large sum.
Memory hookThe Pareto principle, where the top 20% of products bring in most of the sales, looks at the head; the long tail looks at the tail.