''The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More'' is a book by

Chris Anderson Chris Anderson may refer to: Sports * Chris Anderson (baseball) (born 1992), American baseball player * Chris Anderson (cheese roller), 22-time winner of annual cheese rolling * Chris Anderson (footballer, born 1925) (1925–1986), Scottish footb ...

, editor in chief of ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'' magazine. The book was initially published on July 11, 2006, by Hyperion. The book, Anderson's first, is an expansion of his 2004 article ''The Long Tail'' in the magazine. The book was listed in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' Nonfiction Best Sellers list. It was shortlisted for the ''Financial Times'' and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award on 18 September 2006.

Concept

The book argues that products in low demand or that have a low sales volume can collectively build a better market share than their rivals, or exceed the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, provided the store or distribution channel is large enough. The term ''

long tail In statistics and business, a long tail of some probability distribution, distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having many occurrences far from the "head" or central part of the distribution. The distribution could involv ...

'' has gained popularity as describing the

retailing Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

strategy of selling a large number of different items which each sell in relatively small quantities, usually in addition to selling large quantities of a small number of popular items. Chris Anderson popularized the concept in an October 2004 ''

'' magazine article, in which he mentioned

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

and

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

as examples of businesses applying this strategy.

Criticism

—Review by ''

References

External links

Chris Anderson blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More 2006 non-fiction books Business books