Leveraging the long tail – YooX

There is no doubt that the Internet has become an important part of our daily lives, and it is involved in many of its features, business is one of these features that attracts more and more people every day due to the numerous advantages of commercial websites. In this post I am going to discuss the seventh pattern of web 2 as defined by Tim O’Reilly “Leveraging the long tail” that traders use to develop their targeted website traffic.

What does the Long Tail means:

The first used of long tail expression was by Chris Anderson in 2004 to describe the searching of products on commercial websites by individuals.

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. Chris Anderson

On the left of the graph, the red head represent the popular products on the commercial websites that has high volume of traffic. Whereas, on the bottom, the orange tail shows the niche products that has soft volume.

Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head. Tim O’Reilly

Many different business in online markets take the long tails advantages such as Blinds.com, Netflix, eBay.com, Amazon.com, etc. In this pattern I will use YOOX as a good example of leveraging the long tail.

About YOOX:

Yoox is an Italian online retailer of multi-brand fashion, design and art. It was established in 2000 by Federico Marchetti and serves more than 100 countries worldwide. The company’s concept is to sell different range of end-of-season clothing and accessories of international brands such as Cavalli, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana in cheaper cost around half price of original one to enable “luxury brands to off-load last year’s merchandise without undermining their brands or cannibalizing sales at their existing stores”. It also include new collections clothing, books, furniture, pet accessories and exclusive capsule collections. The price of these products set by the supplier.

The name, Yoox, is said to be composed of the male (Y) and female (X) chromosome letters linked by OO, the symbol of infinity or “the ‘zero’ from the binary code, the fundamental language of the digital age”. Wikipedia

Demonstrate The Long Tail by using YOOX:

• Build on the driving forces of the Long Tail: YOOX builds on the driving forces of the long tail, it has a perfect democratized tools of production to keep the long tail by offering a large number of online retailers products under one roof and the searchable about these products will be through many criteria such as designer, size, type, price, etc. The special feature of this site is that, YOOX displays old collection of fashion companies with low price could be up to 90% discount. That characteristic bring more buyers and help the fashion companies to clean their shelve from the old collection and give the chance for the new season collections.
• Use algorithmic data management to match supply and demand : As we said before, customers search about products in YOOX via criteria such as gender, brand, size, material, price, last arrival, etc that help to make more sales operations. It also allowing customers to leave comments about the products to help others to make a decision in their purchase. Additionally, users can see other products thats match what they are looking for.
• Use architecture of participation to match supply and demand : YOOX has a search tool that allows the users to search by popularity. YOOX display the best products and special offers every few weeks. For example, you can see in the home page this week discount of kidswear up to 20 %. Also YOOX showcases products information and  delivery and return term. When you search about something in  YOOX you will see suggestion in the bottom  relevant to your choice.
• Leverage customer self-service to cost effectively reach the entire web:  YOOX allowing customers to register in MYOOX to facilitate costomer shopping experience. MYOOX allowing users save and organize information in his Card Wallet and Address Book to make purchases easy and fast which increase customer satisfaction. Additionally, the costumers can change their  payment settings easily from change the account setting. The users can share what they like in Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest easily by click in these social media icons. They also can track shipments by My Orders and check the order status.
• Leverage the low-cost advantages of being online: YOOX reduce expenses of real store that include store rent, furniture ,workers, advertisement, etc by excellent management of the site. It also increase the process of buying and selling on the site by focusing on the SEO services and publicize the site that cost less than TV or printed ads cost.

In conclusion, online shopping give us the possibility of comparison between more than one site offers the same item for while getting the most competitive price, some facilities with regard to shipping and other expenses. Additionally, we can not forget that the electronic stores never close their doors as the  physical stores. Shopping online not require to leave your home and defray of transmission or fuel for a car and may find on the Internet some of the goods that are not available in local stores. On the other hand, online shopping has some disadvantages, falling as victim if the the procurement process via an untrusted site, or the product contrary to the real attributes. In addition, you can not negotiate on price or delivery dates and other things to the lack of communication and face-to-face between the client and the seller. Finally, you can not inspect the goods before buying just see the image and after receiving If the image does not match that imagined and decided not to receive it they do not allow that.