In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a more significant proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to necessity goods, where demand increases proportionally less than income. [1] Luxury goods is often used synonymously with superior goods.
The word "luxury" derives from the Latin verb luxor meaning to overextend or strain. From this, the noun luxuria and verb luxurio developed, "indicating immoderate growth, swelling, ... in persons and animals, willful or unruly behavior, disregard for moral restraints, and licensciousness", and the term has had negative connotations for most of its long history. [2] One definition in the OED is a "thing desirable but not necessary". A luxury good can be identified by comparing the demand for the good at one point in time against the demand for the good at a different time, at a different income level. When personal income increases, demand for luxury goods increases even more than income does.
Conversely, when personal income decreases, demand for luxury goods drops even more than income does. [3] For example, if income rises 1%, and the demand for a product rises 2%, then the product is a luxury good. This contrasts with necessity goods, or basic goods, for which demand stays the same or decreases only slightly as income decreases. [3]
With increasing accessibility to luxury goods, [4] new product categories have been created within the luxury market, called "accessible luxury" or "mass luxury". These are meant specifically for the middle class, sometimes called the "aspiring class" in this context. Because luxury has diffused into the masses, defining the word has become more difficult. [5]
Whereas luxury often refers to certain types of products, luxury is not restricted to physical goods; services can also be luxury. Likewise, from the consumer perspective, luxury is an experience defined as "hedonic escapism". [6]
"Superior goods" is the gradable antonym of "inferior good". If the quantity of an item demanded increases with income, but not by enough to increase the share of the budget spent on it, then it is only a normal good and is not a superior good. Consumption of all normal goods increases as income increases. For example, if income increases by 50%, then consumption will increase (maybe by only 1%, maybe by 40%, maybe by 70%). A superior good is a normal good for which the proportional consumption increase exceeds the proportional income increase. So, if income increases by 50%, then consumption of a superior good will increase by more than 50% (maybe 51%, maybe 70%).
In economics terminology, all goods with an income elasticity of demand greater than zero are "normal", but only the subset having income elasticity of demand > 1 are "superior". [7]
Some articles in the microeconomics discipline use the term superior good as an alternative to an inferior good, thus making "superior goods" and "normal goods" synonymous. Where this is done, a product making up an increasing share of spending under income increases is often called an ultra-superior good.[ citation needed ]
Though often verging on the meaningless in modern marketing, "luxury" remains a legitimate and current technical term in art history for objects that are especially highly decorated to very high standards and use expensive materials. The term is especially used for medieval manuscripts to distinguish between practical working books for normal use, and fully illuminated manuscripts, that were often bound in treasure bindings with metalwork and jewels. These are often much larger, with less text on each page and many illustrations, and if liturgical texts were originally usually kept on the altar or sacristy rather any library that the church or monastery who owned them may have had. Secular luxury manuscripts were commissioned by the very wealthy and differed in the same ways from cheaper books. [8]
"Luxury" and "luxury arts" may be used for other applied arts where both utilitarian and luxury versions of the same types of objects were made. This might cover metalwork, ceramics, glass, arms and armor, and various objects. [9] It is much less used for objects from the fine arts, with no function beyond being an artwork: paintings, drawings, and sculpture, even though the disparity in cost between an expensive and cheap work may have been as large. [10]
Luxury goods have high income elasticity of demand: as people become wealthier, they will buy proportionately more luxury goods. This also means that should there be a decline in income, its demand will drop more than proportionately. The income elasticity of demand is not constant with respect to income and may change signs at different income levels. That is to say, a luxury good may become a necessity good or even an inferior good at different income levels.
Some luxury products have been claimed to be examples of Veblen goods, with a positive price elasticity of demand: for example, making a perfume more expensive can increase its perceived value as a luxury good to such an extent that sales can go up, rather than down. However, Veblen goods are not synonymous with luxury goods.
Although the technical term luxury good is independent of the goods' quality, they are generally considered to be goods at the highest end of the market in terms of quality and price. Many markets have a luxury segment including, for example, luxury versions of automobiles, yachts, wine, bottled water, coffee, tea, foods, watches, clothes, jewelry, cosmetics and high fidelity sound equipment. [11] Luxuries may be services. Hiring full-time or live-in domestic servants is a luxury reflecting income disparities. Some financial services, especially in some brokerage houses, can be considered luxury services by default because persons in lower-income brackets generally do not use them.
Luxury goods often have special luxury packaging to differentiate the products from mainstream competitors.
Originally, luxury goods were available only to the very wealthy and "aristocratic world of old money" that offered them a history of tradition, superior quality, and a pampered buying experience. [12] Luxury goods have been transformed by a shift from custom-made (bespoke) works with exclusive distribution practices by specialized, quality-minded family-run and small businesses to a mass production of specialty branded goods by profit-focused large corporations and marketers. [12] The trend in modern luxury is simply a product or service that is marketed, packaged, and sold by global corporations that are focused "on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and, above all, profits." [12] Increasingly, luxury logos are now available to all consumers at a premium price across the world, including online. [13]
Global consumer companies, such as Procter & Gamble, are also attracted to the industry due to the difficulty of making a profit in the mass consumer goods market. [14] The customer base for various luxury goods continue to be more culturally diversified, and this presents more unseen challenges and new opportunities to companies in this industry. [15]
There are several trends in luxury: [16]
The luxury goods market has been on an upward climb for many years. Apart from the setback caused by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the industry has performed well, particularly in 2000. That year, the world luxury goods market was worth nearly $170 billion and grew 7.9 percent. [23] The United States has been the largest regional market for luxury goods. The largest sector in this category was luxury drinks, including premium whisky, champagne, and cognac.[ citation needed ] The watches and jewelry section showed the strongest performance, growing in value by 23.3 percent, while the clothing and accessories section grew 11.6 percent between 1996 and 2000, to $32.8 billion. The largest ten markets for luxury goods account for 83 percent of overall sales and include Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom, and United States.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, China surpassed Japan as the world's largest luxury market. [24] China's luxury consumption accounts for over 25% of the global market. [25] According to the Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report 2020, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Singapore were four of the five most expensive cities for luxury goods in Asia. [26] In 2014, the luxury sector was expected to grow over the following ten years because of 440 million consumers spending a total of 880 billion euros, or $1.2 trillion. [27]
The advertising expenditure for the average luxury brand is 5-15% of sales revenue, or about 25% with the inclusion of other communications such as public relations, events, and sponsorships. [28]
A rather small group in comparison, the wealthy tend to be extremely influential. [29] Once a brand gets an "endorsement" from members of this group, then the brand can be defined as a true "luxury" brand. An example of different product lines in the same brand is found in the automotive industry, with "entry-level" cars marketed to younger, less wealthy consumers, and higher-cost models for older and more wealthy consumers. [30]
In economics, superior goods or luxury goods make up a larger proportion of consumption as income rises, and therefore are a type of normal goods in consumer theory. Such a good must possess two economic characteristics: it must be scarce, and, along with that, it must have a high price. [31] The scarcity of the good can be natural or artificial; however, the general population (i.e., consumers) must recognize the good as distinguishably better. Possession of such a good usually signifies "superiority" in resources and is usually accompanied by prestige.
A Veblen good is a superior good with a prestige value so high that a price decline might lower demand. Veblen's contribution is demonstrated by the significance of the Veblen effect, which refers to the phenomenon of people purchasing costly items even when more affordable options that provide similar levels of satisfaction are available. [32]
The income elasticity of a superior good is above one by definition because it raises the expenditure share as income rises. A superior good may also be a luxury good that is not purchased below a certain income level. Examples would include smoked salmon, caviar, [31] and most other delicacies. On the other hand, superior goods may have a wide quality distribution, such as wine and holidays. However, though the number of such goods consumed may stay constant even with rising wealth, the level of spending will go up to secure a better experience.
A higher income inequality leads to higher consumption of luxury goods because of status anxiety. [33] [34]
Several manufactured products attain the status of "luxury goods" due to their design, quality, durability, or performance, which are superior to comparable substitutes. [35]
Some goods are perceived as luxurious by the public simply because they play the role of status symbols, as such goods tend to signify the purchasing power of those who acquire them.[ citation needed ] These items, while not necessarily being better (in quality, performance, or appearance) than their less expensive substitutes, are purchased with the main purpose of displaying wealth or income of their owners.[ citation needed ] These kinds of goods are the objects of a socio-economic phenomenon called conspicuous consumption and commonly include luxury cars, watches, jewelry, designer clothing, yachts, private jets, corporate helicopters as well as large residences, urban mansions, and country houses.[ citation needed ]
The idea of a luxury brand is not necessarily a product or a price point, but a mindset where core values that are expressed by a brand are directly connected to the producer's dedication and alignment to perceptions of quality with its customers' values and aspirations. [36] Thus, it is these target customers, not the product, that make a luxury brand. [36] Brands considered luxury connect with their customers by communicating that they are at the top of their class or considered the best in their field. [37] Furthermore, these brands must deliver – in some meaningful way – measurably better performance. [37]
What consumers perceive as luxurious brands and products change over the years, but there appear to be three main drivers: (1) a high price, especially when compared to other brands within its segment; (2) limited supply, in that a brand may not need to be expensive, but it arguably should not be easily obtainable and contributing to the customers' feeling that they have something special; and (3) endorsement by celebrities, which can make a brand or particular products more appealing for consumers and thus more "luxurious" in their minds. [38] Two additional elements of luxury brands include special packaging and personalization. [38] These differentiating elements distance the brands from the mass market and thus provide them with a unique feeling and user experience as well as a special and memorable "luxury feel" for customers. [38]
Examples include LVMH, the largest luxury goods producer in the world with over fifty brands (including Louis Vuitton) [39] and sales of €42.6 billion in 2017, [40] Kering, which made €15.9 billion in revenue for a net income of €2.3 billion in 2019, [41] and Richemont.
The luxury brand concept is now so popular that it is used in almost every retail, manufacturing, and service sector. [42] New marketing concepts such as "mass-luxury" or "hyper luxury" further blur the definition of what is a luxury product, a luxury brand, or a luxury company. [42] Lately, luxury brands have extended their reach to young consumers through unconventional luxury brand collaborations in which luxury brands partner with non-luxury brands seemingly at the opposite spectrum of design, image, and value. [20] For example, luxury fashion houses partner with streetwear brands and video games. [43]
The sale of luxury goods requires a high level of client service, human touch, and brand consistency. Since the early 2010s, many luxury brands have invested in their own boutiques rather than wholesalers like department stores. Three of the world’s biggest luxury conglomerates— LVMH, Kering, and Richemont — significantly increased the share of annual sales captured from their directly operated stores and e-commerce over the past decade. [44] [45]
Luxury brands use distinct boutique types to tailor the experiences of different client groups.
Flagship boutiques are grand, multi-story boutiques in major cities that are merchandised with a wide range of collections and staffed by a large team of sales associates. They also offer supplemental services, like jewelry cleaning, hot stamping, on-site service. [46]
Many luxury brands use flagship boutiques to illustrate their unique vision or heritage, [47] often through distinctive architecture [48] that transforms them from storefronts to tourist attractions. [49]
Large cities often have secondary boutiques in addition to their flagship boutique. Multiple boutiques allow luxury brands to cater to different types of clients, which can differ even within small geographic areas. Secondary boutiques often offer different merchandise than flagship boutiques, and establish different types of relationships with clients. [50]
Luxury boutiques in smaller cities are often secondary boutiques as well. [46] The rising popularity of secondary and tertiary cities around the world has pushed luxury brands to open secondary boutiques in smaller cities than those that can support a flagship boutique. [51]
Luxury brands use seasonal boutiques to follow their well-heeled clientele as they leave major cities for smaller resort towns in the summer and winter. [52] Common throughout Europe, seasonal boutiques have short-term leases, like a pop-up shop, which are open only during the resort's high season. [46] These boutiques offer merchandise relevant to the resort where they are located, like a cruise collection in a beach resort [53] or skiwear in a mountain resort. [54]
Since the development of mass-market "luxury" brands in the 1800s. Extraordinary places will be the factor of development that can be achieved by enabling the conversion of items from the mass-market to the luxury market.
Many innovative technologies are being added to mass-market products and then transformed into luxury items to be placed in department stores. [55]
Department stores that sell major luxury brands have opened up in most major cities worldwide. Le Bon Marché in Paris, France is credited as one of the first of its kind.
In the United States, the development of luxury-oriented department stores not only changed the retail industry, but also ushered the idea of freedom through consumerism, and a new opportunity for middle- and upper-class women. [56]
Fashion brands within the luxury goods market tend to be concentrated in exclusive or affluent districts of cities worldwide. These include:
Celebrities have played a transformative role in elevating the appeal and desirability of luxury goods, acting as key drivers of consumer trends in the global market. With the advent of social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, their influence has grown exponentially, creating an immediate impact on consumer behavior. Posts and appearances featuring luxury items often lead to global trends, with high-end brands gaining significant visibility and desirability. [71]
Luxury jewelry, particularly diamond rings, has benefited immensely from celebrity influence. High-profile figures, including Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Victoria Beckham, have popularized extravagant diamond rings, especially for engagements and anniversaries. Public appearances showcasing such pieces often inspire consumer interest in similar designs, driving demand for both custom and branded luxury jewelry. [72] [73]
Red carpet events, such as the Academy Awards, Cannes Film Festival, and Met Gala, serve as platforms for celebrities to present the latest offerings from high-end fashion houses. For instance, Zendaya’s collaborations with Valentino and Bulgari have reinforced these brands’ status as symbols of opulence. Such visibility enhances brand recognition and boosts sales among consumers eager to emulate celebrity styles. [74] [75]
Luxury perfumes and watches have long leveraged celebrity endorsements to solidify their market presence. For example, George Clooney's association with Omega watches and Charlize Theron’s campaign for Dior’s J'adore perfume exemplify how celebrity partnerships create a strong emotional connection with products. These endorsements often result in increased sales and further embed these items as essentials in the luxury sector. [76] [77]
This aims to be a complete article list of economics topics:
Consumerism is a social and economic order in which the aspirations of many individuals include the acquisition of goods and services beyond those necessary for survival or traditional displays of status. It emerged in Western Europe before the Industrial Revolution and became widespread around 1900. In economics, consumerism refers to policies that emphasize consumption. It is the consideration that the free choice of consumers should strongly inform the choice by manufacturers of what is produced and how, and therefore influence the economic organization of a society.
In economics, elasticity measures the responsiveness of one economic variable to a change in another. For example, if the price elasticity of the demand of a good is −2, then a 10% increase in price will cause the quantity demanded to fall by 20%. Elasticity in economics provides an understanding of changes in the behavior of the buyers and sellers with price changes. There are two types of elasticity for demand and supply, one is inelastic demand and supply and the other one is elastic demand and supply.
In sociology and in economics, the term conspicuous consumption describes and explains the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical. In 1899, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption to explain the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury commodities specifically as a public display of economic power—the income and the accumulated wealth—of the buyer. To the conspicuous consumer, the public display of discretionary income is an economic means of either attaining or maintaining a given social status.
Pricing is the process whereby a business sets and displays the price at which it will sell its products and services and may be part of the business's marketing plan. In setting prices, the business will take into account the price at which it could acquire the goods, the manufacturing cost, the marketplace, competition, market condition, brand, and quality of the product.
In microeconomics and consumer theory, a Giffen good is a product that people consume more of as the price rises and vice versa, violating the law of demand.
In economics, inferior goods are those goods the demand for which falls with increase in income of the consumer. So, there is an inverse relationship between income of the consumer and the demand for inferior goods. There are many examples of inferior goods, including cheap cars, public transit options, payday lending, and inexpensive food. The shift in consumer demand for an inferior good can be explained by two natural economic phenomena: the substitution effect and the income effect.
In economics, a normal good is a type of a good which experiences an increase in demand due to an increase in income, unlike inferior goods, for which the opposite is observed. When there is an increase in a person's income, for example due to a wage rise, a good for which the demand rises due to the wage increase, is referred as a normal good. Conversely, the demand for normal goods declines when the income decreases, for example due to a wage decrease or layoffs.
A Veblen good is a type of luxury good, named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.
In microeconomics, substitute goods are two goods that can be used for the same purpose by consumers. That is, a consumer perceives both goods as similar or comparable, so that having more of one good causes the consumer to desire less of the other good. Contrary to complementary goods and independent goods, substitute goods may replace each other in use due to changing economic conditions. An example of substitute goods is Coca-Cola and Pepsi; the interchangeable aspect of these goods is due to the similarity of the purpose they serve, i.e. fulfilling customers' desire for a soft drink. These types of substitutes can be referred to as close substitutes.
In microeconomics, the law of demand is a fundamental principle which states that there is an inverse relationship between price and quantity demanded. In other words, "conditional on all else being equal, as the price of a good increases (↑), quantity demanded will decrease (↓); conversely, as the price of a good decreases (↓), quantity demanded will increase (↑)". Alfred Marshall worded this as: "When we say that a person's demand for anything increases, we mean that he will buy more of it than he would before at the same price, and that he will buy as much of it as before at a higher price". The law of demand, however, only makes a qualitative statement in the sense that it describes the direction of change in the amount of quantity demanded but not the magnitude of change.
Consumer behaviour is the study of individuals, groups, or organisations and all activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services. It encompasses how the consumer's emotions, attitudes, and preferences affect buying behaviour. Consumer behaviour emerged in the 1940–1950s as a distinct sub-discipline of marketing, but has become an interdisciplinary social science that blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, marketing, and economics.
The snob effect is a phenomenon described in microeconomics as a situation where the demand for a certain good by individuals of a higher income level is inversely related to its demand by those of a lower income level. The "snob effect" contrasts most other microeconomic models, in that the demand curve can have a positive slope, rather than the typical negatively sloped demand curve of normal goods.
In economics, demand is the quantity of a good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. In economics "demand" for a commodity is not the same thing as "desire" for it. It refers to both the desire to purchase and the ability to pay for a commodity.
Fast fashion is the business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail quickly while demand is at its highest. The term fast fashion is also used generically to describe the products of this business model, particularly clothing and footwear. Retailers who employ the fast fashion strategy include Primark, H&M, Shein, and Zara, all of which have become large multinationals by driving high turnover of inexpensive seasonal and trendy clothing that appeals to fashion-conscious consumers.
The consumer revolution refers to the period from approximately 1600 to 1750 in England in which there was a marked increase in the consumption and variety of luxury goods and products by individuals from different economic and social backgrounds. The consumer revolution marked a departure from the traditional mode of life that was dominated by frugality and scarcity to one of increasingly mass consumption in society.
In economics, the income elasticity of demand (YED) is the responsivenesses of the quantity demanded for a good to a change in consumer income. It is measured as the ratio of the percentage change in quantity demanded to the percentage change in income. For example, if in response to a 10% increase in income, quantity demanded for a good or service were to increase by 20%, the income elasticity of demand would be 20%/10% = 2.0.
Luxury and specialty packaging is the design, research, development, and manufacturing of packaging, displays, and for luxury brands. The packaging of a luxury product is part of the brand’s image and research shows consumers are willing to spend more on products if the packaging looks appealing and luxurious.
Massification is a strategy that some luxury companies use to expose their brands to a broader market and increase sales. As a method of implementing massification, companies have created diffusion lines. Diffusion lines are an offshoot of a company or a designer's original line that is less expensive in order to reach a broader market and gain a wider consumer base. Another strategy used in massification is brand extensions, which is when an already established company releases a new product under their name.
Hype in marketing is a strategy of using extreme publicity. Hype as a modern marketing strategy is closely associated with social media.
[...] as the consumer gets more income, he consumes more of both goods but proportionally more of one good (the luxury good) than of the other (the necessary good).
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