I found this number astonishing. 700,000 people report Ebay as being their primary or secondary source of income. 30 Million items sold daily.
The article is a very good explanation of "the Long Tail". In our niche world, there is an initial interest/upswing in sales - then, if you're lucky, a long tail of sails long afterwards. As an example, the best selling album of all time - Eagle's "Greatest Hits, 1971-1975". 29 million copies since 1976.
Here is a quote from the article by John Cassidy in this weeks New Yorker.
The forces behind the long tail are largely technological: cheap computer hardware, which reduces the cost of making and storing information products; ubiquitous broadband, which cuts the cost of distribution; and elaborate “filters,” such as search engines, blogs, and online reviews, which help to match supply and demand. “Think of each of these three forces as representing a new set of opportunities in the emerging Long Tail marketplace,” Anderson suggests. “The democratized tools of production are leading to a huge increase in the number of producers. Hyperefficient digital economies are leading to new markets and marketplaces. And finally, the ability to tap the distributed intelligence of millions of consumers to match people with the stuff that suits them best is leading to the rise of all sorts of new recommendation and marketing methods, essentially serving as the new tastemakers.”
How do you capture the long-tail in your business? And make it profitable?
