The idea of "long tail" in business is that the sale of a large number of products, each selling a low volumes. One example of long tail in modern business is Amazon.com, which uses an Internet platform to (originally) sell books. Benefiting the power of Internet, books (now including music, movies, TV shows, etc.) that are not a hit to the general public but are interesting to certain group of people can find their genuine audience. Authors, publishers, and of course Amazon.com all benefit from such business model. Similar to Amazon.com, business models of online retailers such as Alibaba and Netflix are all derivatives of the "long tail" concept.
On the contrary, traditional retailers such as Macy's are generating revenue based on the "short leash" concept, which means selling "hit" products that have short inventory time and short turnover time.
 |
| Amazon's Long Tail Business Model |
On the contrary, traditional retailers such as Macy's are generating revenue based on the "short leash" concept, which means selling "hit" products that have short inventory time and short turnover time.
Does BetterPartners have a "long tail" or "short leash"? If you are familiar with fashion industry, then you can think of our model "sort of" like that in fashion industry: we catch people's eyes and sell our design pieces in the form of reports and/or workshops. The same as fashion industry (especailly think about fast fashion brand such as GAP and Zara), we have short inventory period and always look for the next "hit" product to sell. Sometimes, we even want to create the next "hit" products ourselves. I would argue that in an industry powered by knowledge and innovation, it is rare to see a "long tail" business model. And we are not an exception.
One question that popped up in my head when thinking about this blog post is: Is it possible for a business to have both a long tail and a short leash? The idea of "long tail" is to mobilize resources and match them, and the advantage of "short leash" is fast turnover. Can a business have both? If can, can BetterPartners have both? What is the verion of "long tail" concept in professional services (and fashion) industry? Honestly, I don't have a clear answer yet.
 |
| "I don't know." |
This post has some helpful characteristics. I love the "I don't know" picture! Seriously, you have considered these factors very carefully. I agree that you are a short leash model, but I also agree that some models are actually both (particularly if there is both a platform tool which is short leash and a market place which is long tail).
ReplyDelete- CBB