What the hell's a vertical?

[vsloathe]

This better not turn into one of those kiddy boards where all they do is talk in marketing bullshit pseudo-speak. That'd be so lame.

 
        verticals

[nutballs]

when i see big round boobies i get a VERTICAL

there no marketing bullshit for you.

small edit to make it bettererer

[perkiset]

 

[SEOidiot]

Well thats this board ruined.......   

[dink]

Pay no attention to the peanut gallery, VS.  They are only here to amuse us.

Vertical vs horizontal.
Amazon is a horizontal.  Zappos is a vertical.

Amazon has some of everything ever invented.  Zappos has (mostly) shoes.

Bugger off bystanders.   

[Ekim]

yeah, and if they got some of everything invented + shoes then it's a diagonal.... 

[nutballs]

</smart assmode>
<smartmode>
Actually amazon is probably a bad example because its more like a blanket. It covers everything, even down into the verticals.

A vertical is like a Niche, but maybe one step up from it. The only difference from a niche is that a niche tends to be EVERYTHING about that niche, whereas a vertical tends to drill down to 1 final result set that is very specific.

An example of a vertical would be Fasteners (like nails and screws and such). drill down into nails. drill down into 10 penny nails, drill down into galvanized.

the name vertical is generally deceiving, since its not a Tube, but more like a funnel. Most broad (horizontal) companies have verticals within. Amazon for example seems like they are just a big giant box, and you never can actually get down to 1 specific thing. Not entirely true, since you browse down to a result set. They "try" to be a conglomerate of verticals. I think they fail at it, but thats only because they dont drill down far enough.

A true horizontal would be a store where they sell only 1 of each type of thing. So, you want shoes? we got shoes. Blue, Chuck Taylors, thats it. You want a hammer? we got a hammer. wooden, 1 pound, steel head, claw, thats it.

[vsloathe]

Awesome NB. I now understand completely what is meant by a vertical. I get confused by these terms sometimes, being from an entirely technical backround and what little business experience I have is mostly accounting and finance and little to no marketing.

[nutballs]

no problem. I have spent alot of time talking with marketing Fishwits, trying to understand what they ACTUALLY WANT in between all the mumbo jumbo they spew. Verticals is not actually that bad of a marketing jargon though, since it actually does kind of get the point across visually. I want to drill down into something vertically, like a microscope or a zoom lens. unfortunatly because its marketing jargon, it may not actually mean what you think. often times the guy saying it doesnt actually know what it means either, and as such, you are Fished. You will need to talk alot to get to the simple answer they actually should have said in the first place.

My record so far is about 50 accumulated hours, to finally determine that what the client wanted was a shopping cart that they didnt have to deal with at all, except take orders. So monstercommerce it was.