Researchers at Wharton say the long tail isn’t what you think. Long-Tail-Effect-Doesnt-Work-As-Advertised-Say-Wharton-Researchers. In fact, they say, “long tail” buyers are just buyers of most popular products in specific categories. Well, that begs the question. If you divide finely enough (e.g., categories of one!), then of course the most popular product in category accounts for the predominance of sales in category (there is only one product in the category, duh!). The real questions are: (1) how fine is the categorization such that long tail doesn’t apply within category; (2) is this categorization stable and shopper independent; (3) how is this categorization related to the merchant categorization, if at all; (4) how can we identify the “category” in which a shopper is interested, esp wrt previous questions.
The long tail isn’t what you think, or is it?
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