Instead of my usual regurgitation of info from the reading I'm going to tell a story that helped me understand what the long tail is.
Just before new years 2011 I bought the cutest black bow ring for $5 from Diva (on the hand holding the bottle, even though it's broken at this point),
I loved it so much and I wore it to Field Day cause it matched my outfit. It broke that day and i was devastated so I spent the next few months looking for it in every Diva I could get to. Eventually I gave up, even though I always keep an eye out every time I go shopping.
This past weekend I went up to Port Macquarie and my boyfriend bought me a ring. I love the ring because he chose it and got it for me but whilst he was off buying this ring i spotted a black bow ring in a specialty jeweler. When I told him about my obsession with replacing my original $5 ring he was upset because he had just purchased the non-returnable love heart ring. I told him it was OK but I spent the next hour thinking about the bow ring and wanting to buy it. My final decision was made up when I remembered that I hadn't tried to find the ring on eBay.
When i searched for black bow ring I found a ring 100x better than the original and it was $10. It was one of the happiest days of my life, sadly enough, and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner.
eBay is my go-to place for dresses and jewellery that I will know noone else will have and obscure pieces that I envision in my head but can't find in mainstream stores. Chris Anderson's explanation of the long tail helped me understand why eBay is so successful, it's huge selection of rare and one off pieces that can be found by keyword searches open up new markets and expand existing ones.
Anderson outlined 3 Rules:
1. Make everything available: eBay was one of the only places I could find an assortment of rings that fit my bow criteria.
2. Cut the price in half, then lower it: The bow ring in the shop was $55. The one I found on eBay was $10.23.
3. Help me find it: The search tool on eBay helped me find my ring in about 0.3 seconds.
Hopefully my little story helps you understand the long tail like it helped me
Nice post Lauren. I too find myself turning to eBay for a number of items, even if they are items that can be purchased from a store. Again the reason is that of choice and knowing that they have the product that you want. It happens so often that you decide you want a particular product, style, type etc so you head down to the store to buy it but they are sold out. It's amazingly frustrating! This is especially important when that product might be what you need, and you aren't willing to substitute it for something else. eBay on the other hand allows you to search for exactly the product you want, you often have numerous choices in terms of where to buy and can even compare prices. Not to mention it gets delivered to your house. Can you ask for anything more?
ReplyDeleteYour explanation of the long tail made alot of sense. All major stores (in the sense of clothing stores such as Cotton on and Sports girl) do operate within a particular style of merchandise available only at one time which are widely available. But through ebay you can find specialty, unique pieces that are more valuable then that available through mainstream stores. That's why the long tail is so successful. There is more value put into those things we seek out compared to the huge forced mainstream factors and your personal experience outlined those points!
ReplyDeletei like the explination, much better than the boring old recite the lecture and reading stuff that i do most weeks. Onto the ebay thing, yeah its so handy being able to get what ever your heart desires. I saw this picture of a girl wearing a hat online saying drunken at some party, and sometimes i get called that so all i did was jump on ebay and a week later i had my hat sitting on the front door step. Its become so conveinient, which personally as a boy i love because i hate shopping. Why bother walking around when you can just sit at home. Much better!
ReplyDelete1. I understand now! After reading all the readings and doing additional research all I found interesting was a cute picture of I dinosaur I tweeted about but this makes sense now, thanks! eBay and online shopping in general is the key to efficient and specific shopping, another platform in the amazing endless world of digital media.
ReplyDeleteGreat explanation Lauren, like the previous posters (posters? postees? hmm), I agree that the term could be more effective if it was more self explanatory. I liked that you told a story to explain, and found it very apt! Also, @Lydia, it is a great picture of a dinosaur and I actually think it may have helped the explanation, haha.
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