Business Opportunities Weblog

May 11, 2007 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Kansas City Star:

The long tail may be calling for your business.

“There is a mass market, but there are lots and lots of small niches. With the Internet, you have the opportunity to capture into demand that doesn’t have the volume that popular items do,� said Kissan Joseph, associate professor and a Stockton Research Fellow at the University of Kansas. “If you don’t address that opportunity someone else will.�

By capturing the “long tail,� or the small niche market that is normally not serviced by large providers, Lenexa-based Freightquote.com has become a $200 million, 500-employee company in less than a decade.

The firm emerged on the e-commerce scene in 1998 to specifically service small and midsize firms that didn’t have the resources and purchasing power to fulfill their shipping needs.

“On the one end of the tail, you have the very large enterprise, which we pretty much steer clear of,� said Tim Barton, chairman and chief executive of Freightquote.com. “Then you hit that long tail where there are thousands of freight users who are generally less sophisticated and harder to reach. That’s where we focus and deploy our various marketing efforts.�

E-marketing makes it possible to capture demand in the long tail because of lower costs and competition. By transferring as many marketing activities, such as promotion campaigns and customer support, to the Web, companies increase opportunities for customer input without increasing costs.

Photo by Freightquote.

In Niche, Strategy | 1 Comment