Anatomy of the Long Tail:
Ordinary People with Extraordinary Tastes
Presented by Maria Avraleva
To Prof. Dr. Eduard Heindl
Long Tail as a property of online
market
Amazon as an example of the effective
Long-Tail model
30% of sales are from the category of “unpopular
items” (tail)
Advantages that Amazon.com takes:
Ability to sell rare items; “one-stop shopping” for
both mainstream and niche interests
Building effective advertisement system
Building a powerful recommendation engine.
Recommendation engine
Amazon.com: the store will recommend additional items
based on a matrix of what other shoppers bought along
with the currently selected item.
Eccentricity: two theories
1. Majority of
consumers prefer
popular offerings;
only a minority
seeks for niche
content
2. Everybody is a bit
eccentric, consuming
both popular and
specialty products.
Are people satisfied with a small inventory of
goods?
Data Analysis
• Sharad Goel et al. “Anatomy of the Long Tail: Ordinary People
with Extraordinary Tastes”
Data Analysis Results
• Two main conclusions:
1. A relatively small number of items account
for a disproportionally large fraction of total
consumption
2. The tail in aggregate is nevertheless heavy.
100 most popular movies –
15% of consumption
3000 most popular movies –
still 13% of consumption
unmet
Individual Eccentricity
• To what extent do individuals have niche
interests?
Given inventory: k most popular items.
Find: How many customers are 100% satisfied? 90% satisfied?
100% satisfaction
90% satisfaction
Netflix: k=3000
11%
63%
Yahoo! Music: k = 50000
5%
32%
Cumulative popularity function in
different domains
% of users
satisfied
Cumulative Popularity
Rating of niche products
Tail Consumers
Large share of audience for popular products
consists of relatively light customers;
Large share of the audience for niche products
consists of relatively heavy customers;
Consumers of the most obscure products are
also buying the hits.
Consumption of long-tail offerings is more
prevalent among people who stick to a genre.
Advice to Retailers
 If the goal is to cater to your heavy customers, broaden
your assortment with more niche products.
 Strictly manage the costs of offering products that will
rarely sell.
 Acquire and manage customers by using your most
popular products.
 Even though obscure products may have a higher profit
margin, resist the temptation to direct customers to the
tail too often, or you'll risk their dissatisfaction.
Conclusion
Vast majority of users are a little bit eccentric
(sometimes we all consume tail – items)
Convenient one-stop shop for mainstream and
niche is provided by “infinite-inventories”
Users value specialty items
Any questions
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!