Management

1. Create a Paper that thoroughly answers in written paper / paragraph format one of the following questions:
1.What is the long tail? How does the long tail change retail economics? How does it influence shoppers’ choice of where to look for products? What firms, other than Amazon, are taking advantage of the long tail in their industries? OR
2.How successful have Kindle e-book readers been? How about Fire tablet, Fire TV, and Echo? What barriers does the firm face in competing? What advantages does Amazon have?
3.The official form and style format for the College of Business is APA. You must use appropriate APA format for citations and references. Using your text book and Library Resources include 2 or 3 resources to support your answers / point of view.
4. The instructor will be grading the 750+ Words in Microsoft Word paper using the Case Study rubric.

Case Study Rubric:
Knowledge and Understanding
20 pts
Excellent. Excellent. Comprehensive, in-depth and wide ranging. Outstanding ability to grasp concepts and related theory to practice.
14 pts
Adequate. Adequate. Up to date and relevant. High level of ability to conceptualize essential ideas and relate theory to practice.
8 pts
Poor. Limited superficial knowledge. Some ability to conceptualize essential ideas and relate theory to practice.
0 pts
Absent. No submission.
20 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomePeer Review
20 pts
Excellent. Comprehensive discussion summary. Correctly identifies the main idea in a clear and accurate manner. Clearly states 2 or more important details using paraphrasing. Includes a summary of the facilitating experience.
14 pts
Adequate. Complete discussion summary. Correctly identifies most of the main idea in a complete sentence. States at least 2 important details with some paraphrasing of information. Includes a summary of the facilitating experience.
8 pts
Poor. Incomplete discussion summary. Identifies an important idea but not the main idea in a complete sentence. States at least 1 important detail. Demonstrates little if any paraphrasing. Includes a summary of the facilitating experience.
0 pts
Absent. No discussion summary.
20 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeDocumentation and Referencing
6 pts
Excellent. Uses appropriate evidence and documentation demonstrating highly competent information access, evaluation and application. Cited works/bibliography follow APA and are skillfully incorporated into paper as appropriate.
4 pts
Adequate. Uses appropriate references from a few relevant information sources, showing adequate information access, evaluation and application. Cited works follow APA with few citation errors.
2 pts
Poor. Demonstrates poor documentation skills or effort and an over-reliance on tertiary sources. Cited works follow APA with few citation errors.
0 pts
Absent. No references.
6 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAssignment Submission and Length
4 pts
Excellent. Adhered to the length criteria as outlined in the assignment. Submitted the assignment on or before the stated due date.
2 pts
Adequate. The length of the assignment was short or long as outlined in the assignment. Submitted the assignment on or before the stated due date.
0 pts
Poor. The length of the assignment was short or long as outlined in the assignment. The assignment was posted after the stated due date.
4 pts
Total Points: 50

ANSWER

Long Tail

Coined by Chris Anderson in 2004, long tail is a business strategy used by companies to increase their profits by selling low volumes of goods that are hard to find instead of selling high volumes (Imgrund et al., 2017). Using the concept of economics, Anderson analyzed that less popular goods with low demand could benefit from the advantage of popular goods going mainstream. He argues that such products with low demand could actually bring on more profit if properly marketed through the correct channels. The gap is left by popular brands that venture into mainstream marketing like online shopping sell popular goods in unmeasurable volume. This leaves the traditional methods of selling and marketing chances for the goods in low demand to be presented into the market in low volume with dictated terms, thus posing an opportunity for companies to make a profit.

Anderson further argued that the demand overall for the less popular goods as a comprehensive could challenge the mainstream goods. For instance, even though the popular brands sell more products through mainstream channels, the cost of production lowers the profitability of such goods. On the other hand, long-tail products always maintain the same channels of production, thus accruing more profit. In addition, long tail influences shoppers on where to look for products. As mentioned, they use unconventional shopping platforms like chain and dollar stores to sell their goods (Singh & Matsui, 2017). Logically, their brands cannot be sold through mainstream platforms.

There are companies apart from Amazon using long tail strategy to sell their brands. For instance, River Pools and Spas, a website advertising unpopular goods, is one of the leading brands using long tail. For instance, River Pool and Spas explored long tail keywords for the website’s blog and came up with an in-depth blog post concerning the cost of underground pools, which eventually generated $2 million in sales.

References

Imgrund, F., Fischer, M., Janiesch, C., & Winkelmann, A. (2017). Managing the long tail of business processes.

Singh, M., & Matsui, Y. (2017). How long tail and trust affect online shopping behavior: An extension to UTAUT2 framework. Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 9(4), 2.