The Long Tail

The Long Tail is a theory that described by Chris Anderson. According to Chris in his blog who stats that the culture and economy is shifting from focusing on small number of mainstream products and markets into a large number of niches, where the mainstream is the head and niches is the tail. The following graph will describe it better:

One example of The Long Tail is Etsy. Etsy is a global web site have its users coming from more than 150 countries. The user have the chance to buy products or sell their products. There are three different products that the user is allowed to sell, hand-made by the seller, old products (age 20 years or older), commercial and handmade supplies.

The three types of products allowed in Etsy

There are three steps to sell a products. First, listing the item in your account and give it a cost. Second, getting paid directly from the buyer. Third step, shipping the item to the buyer.

The three types of products allowed in Etsy

When buying a product, just search for the needed product, see the location of the product, then read the feedback of the seller, if every thing good just add it to cart and pay yousing PayPal, or Credit Card.

When commparing Etsy with other famous websits like eBay, we find Etsy is very limited to three types of products. While eBay users can sell whatever they want as well as the user can choose whether to sell the product or make an auction.

So, this leads us to this question, Do you use online web sites to sell a product?