The Long Tail Economic Theory

The Long Tail and its Effect

The long tail is a relatively new economic phenomenon. The long tail allows retailers, whose primary business is conducted on-line, to have an infinite amount of stock. Examples of business that follow this economic path are on-line businesses such as Amazon.com and Apple’s iTunes. These two predominate businesses have an infinite amount of stock because everything is conducted in cyber space. This new economic theory also allows for little name books to have a chance at becoming a huge success.

This new economic model is something that has begun to show how powerful is can be in the media world. As more time pass more things are turning to a digital role. Consumers no longer have to go to their local video store to rent a movie. They can simply turn their computer or Xbox on or basically any other electronic device to watch a movie. If a person wants to hear a song from a specific artist they no longer need to go out and buy the whole album. They can simply turn their computer on go to iTunes and download it.

This new economic model is also a huge advantage in bringing the obscure items in the media a chance to shine. Consumers now basically have no limit as to what they can get their hands on. If a consumer wants to listen to a tribal song from Africa, he now can simply log onto the internet and go to iTunes and find whatever tribal song from Africa that he may want.  This idea pretty much goes for anything. The stock room is as big as it needs to be with the long tail. This is because there is no true stock room and the retailer never has to worry about space being used up.

This economic theory is totally different from the era that this world just came out of. In the previous model the short head. This is where consumers predominately went out to big box stores such as Wal-Mart and Target and bought big block-buster hits, big music album, and New York Times Best sellers. This model of course made a small amount of people a lot of money. This model also had very little convenience to the consumer. They could only buy what the story would supply. They also could only buy when the stores were open. This is the opposite for the long tail model. Everything is open all of the time and the consumer can pick whatever they like.

Overall the long tail economic theory benefits the consumer greatly. It also allows for items that may not be the most popular products to become more in the main front. There is no more depending on what the big box stores are going to stock which helps benefit the consumer. With the internet anything is quite possible and allows for consumers to fully take advantage of their media consuming experience.