Luxury products are strange beasts. They are a source of confusion to a scholar of economics (my first education is in economics, so I know a little bit about which I am talking).

Luxury goods, let alone Veblen goods (products that increase in demand as the price rises), cause peculiar patterns in the demand curve, signaling specific consumer behavior. However, from the standpoint of quality management, luxury products are also an outlier. On the one hand, quality is a sine qua non for a luxury product; on the other hand, quality alone wouldn’t suffice for an item to qualify as luxury. The reason is that consumption of luxury products is driven by prestige-seeking consumer behavior, whether that’s directed inward (for selfish motives, like pampering oneself) or outward (impressing others, making them envious). Interestingly, the subject of luxury products and their quality is covered in literature almost exclusively by marketing scholars.

 …