He has a point that the long tail of middlemen is getting crushed. There's no reason to order routine consumer goods from anywhere other than Amazon.com or a handful of other sites.<p>He gives a shout-out to retailers that offer improved shopping experiences. I think there's still room there: I routinely order parts from a small car-parts company that has the exact list of parts I need to fix my old car, and makes it incredibly easy to find exactly what I need. If anything, the supplier is a value-added retailer because they offer advice, tips, and will email me if I order something really stupid (parts for the wrong year or model).<p>And he's completely wrong as to unique/custom products; the experience there is almost the opposite. Hello long tail of unique, customized, and personalized goods.<p>I routinely buy customized stuff from Etsy and similar artsy aggregators. It is often stuff that defines the long tail: there is exactly one of each item, but thousands of similar goods. A producer who can fill this need at scale has plenty of opportunity.<p>I routinely buy letterpress goods straight from the press. Again, it's often customized or personalized, and usually they will sell a few hundred units at most. Again, opportunity in the long tail if you can find a way to fulfill at scale.<p>I buy t-shirts and similar from an ever-evolving collection of online shirt retailers. Some might use the same back-end fulfillment, but I know from my local screenprint shop that there is still a huge (and growing) business in short-run screenprinting.
Linkbait headline.<p>The "long tail" is still very much out there. As slapshot notes, Etsy has opened up a completely new "long tail" that shows no sign of slowing down. As is, say, airBnB...
Good points on how to compete with Amazon, if you choose to compete with Amazon. (You do it on service, because you'll never beat them on price.)<p>But I'm not sure what that has to do with the original "long tail" thesis --- that applied more to authors, musicians, etc., who are more likely to be selling through Amazon than establishing their own retail operation on the side. (And if they are doing direct retail, they're almost certainly selling goods that aren't available through Amazon at all.)
I just had a similar experience. While looking to buy a $400 item, I found someone with the item in stock who was willing to ship (note: not in the USA, many merchants will not ship internationally, including Amazon on big-ticket items).<p>After some back-and-forth, the order was placed, and this small online retailer had my business.<p>But then - 5 days after the order was placed - an email came back. We want an international wire transfer instead of mastercard payment. No way, I said - a wire transfer is a black hole where I have no comebak. I offered a PayPal payment instead. No, they said, wire transfer or nothing. I cannot for the life of me understand this logic. It's not like I'm buying and shipping to Nigeria or some other known fraud location. If it was about mastercard fees, I would have happily paid a 2 or 3% surcharge. It still would have been cheaper than having to drive to my bank, sit in a queue, organise forms and pay $20 for a wire transfer.<p>So the answer was no credit card, no sale, and they didn't get the sale. The sale instead went to a combination of Amazon and a third-party freight forwarding company. The combined price was about the same as the original merchant.<p>Why anyone would offer to ship internationally and then request a wire transfer is beyond me. Either shun international purchases (eg zappos) or welcome them properly.
The good news is that you don't have to compete with Amazon. You can sell your own things through Amazon and you will always be able to attract traffic via informational portals and link to Amazon to sell products which are the subject of those portals and make money via the affiliate program.<p>Otherwise, I can't really argue with the article. I always look to Amazon first to buy things. Even if I'm buying locally I will look to Amazon first for reviews and pricing.
Weird article. Long tail of products is definitely here to stay with the internet. Weird things, out of print books, fancy japanese pens I can't get at the office supply store, movies that were never released in the states, ingredients to strange ethnic dishes, repair parts for my antique whazzit, it's all on the internet. A lot of the small places have things cheaper than amazon too if you look around enough. Or save time and go with amazon.