Ecommerce: Managing the Long Tail

[mandy]

My team and I deal with inventory sets in the hundreds of thousands.  Such large product catalogs cause logistical pains, but in many cases, the larger issue is getting to profitability when the aggregate cost of that "long tail" of low click, non-revene generating products outweighs the revenue generated by the head of the distribution. Sometimes, this is the case whith feeds that are smaller in size...

The ideal solution is to remove only the correct products from that tail.  The question is how do you define correct?

There is no way to get it right every time. As soon as you remove a product, you risk losing revenue that could have come on the next click. But most retailers will find there are products that just aren't worth including. Here are a few ideas on how to identify those...

full article: http://www.csestrategies.com/cse/2008/03...he-lo.html