← Home

The Pareto Misread

We chase neat rules. The Pareto Principle says eighty percent of sales come from twenty percent of customers. Reality lands softer. Across groceries, apps, and streaming, studies find a 20-50 split: the top fifth of buyers brings in roughly half of revenue.

That leaves the other half to a crowd of light buyers. They arrive, dip in, drift out, sometimes because of life events no campaign can touch, like a move, marriage, or new job. Their churn is background noise in any market of human lives.

Ignoring that crowd narrows the story. Each additional light buyer adds a sale and puts the brand in another pocket, another chat. Word of mouth costs time and effort; it follows density. More users spark more chance conversations, more casual nods.

Pareto sketches yesterday’s ledger. It highlights the heavy slice and stops. The rest of the pie still moves, expands, contracts, and carries gossip. When numbers shift next quarter, the change rarely starts with the whales; it starts with the tide of small, everyday choices that do not fit inside a tidy 80 / 20 box.