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Title: Trading Up: The New American Luxury by Michael Silverstein, Neil Fiske ISBN: 1-59184-013-9 Publisher: Portfolio Pub. Date: 09 October, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Business strategy and the human psyche
Comment: I started reading this book expecting to skim and learn a few key points, like with most business books. But I was pleasantly surprised by Trading Up and read it in its entirety. It is a business book, but it's not "just" a business book. It's about history, behavioral psychology, and sociology; fundamentally, it's about people. It's David Brooks (Bobos in Paradise) meets Michael Porter (Competitive Strategy). It includes colorful stories about how and why "middle market" Americans "trade up" on certain classes of products and scrimp on others. I definitely see myself and many of my friends in these stories. The book also includes an interesting discussion of societal trends that the authors argue have enabled trading up to occur, and many of these trends relate to women (working more, earning more, getting married later, etc.). By documented these trends and telling people's stories, the authors make the idea that "consumption can be good" believable - what's wrong with rewarding myself with Belvedere vodka or a Viking range? I work hard! Although some will disagree with this point (The idea of one rewarding oneself, not the point that I work hard!), I found it refreshing to see the authors take a stance and support their points with data and logic. For those more interested in the business strategy side, "Trading Up" documents how a handful of companies have been able to transcend the conventional wisdom and create breakthrough products that people love (and for which they are willing to pay more). The Victoria's Secret story and the Kendall Jackson wine story were particularly strong. If the book has one fault, it's that it could be more concise (about 50 pages more concise). But all in all, I loved it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Nice Work!
Comment: Silverstein & Fiske do a great job of explaining the apparent dichotomy of BMW's in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Chapter 3 is a great primer for how to market New Luxury. I have read chapter 3 a few times and I keep getting more out of it. This book more clearly explains consumer marketing than the textbooks I read in business school. The book would have been more valuable if they considered how to apply this thinking in a "B to B" environment. Overall, an excellent read but don't take my word for it, visit the Boston Consulting Group web site and download Chapter 1 to get a taste. I bet you will come back here and buy it!
Rating: 5
Summary: New Criteria for Self-Definition
Comment: Silverstein and Fiske brilliantly examine New Luxury": a rapidly developing socio-economic trend as America's middle-market consumers are trading up to "products and services which possess higher levels of quality, taste, and [key word] aspiration than [other] goods in the [same] category but are not so expensive as to be out of reach...[trading up to products and services which] sell at much higher prices than conventional goods and in much higher volumes than traditional luxury goods and, as a result, have soared into previously uncharted territory high above the familiar price-volume demand curve." The significance of this paradigm shift has profound implications for literally anyone who competes each day for consumers' attention, consideration, and (most important of all) business.
Think about it. How to explain the spectacular success of diverse companies such as Starbucks, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Lexus and BMW, Williams-Sonoma and Bed, Bath & Beyond, Restoration Hardware, Victoria's Secret, Prada, Coach, Panera Bread, and Callaway? Granted, most consumers cannot afford to purchase everything from companies such as these but an astonishing number of consumers are not only willing but eager to pay a premium for at least a few of the products offered.
Why? Silverstein and Fiske offer several reasons. New Luxury merchants never underestimate their customer; they shatter the price-volume demand curve; they create a ladder of genuine benefits (i.e. technical, functional, and emotional benefits); they escalate innovation, elevate quality, and deliver a flawless experience; they extend the price range and positioning of the brand; they customize the customer's value chain to deliver on the benefit ladder; they use influence marketing to "seed" success through brand apostles (i.e. "evangelism"); and finally, they continually attack the category like an outsider. What Silverstein and Fiske offer is this volume is a rigorous analysis of those companies which continue to be most successful in the New Luxury economy. They also explain in detail precisely HOW they achieve such success.
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Title: How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market by Gerald Zaltman ISBN: 1578518261 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: 21 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness by Virginia Postrel ISBN: 0060186321 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Call of the Mall : The Author of Why We Buy on the Geography of Shopping by Paco Underhill ISBN: 0743235916 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 09 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Priceless: Turning Ordinary Products into Extraordinary Experiences by Diana Lasalle, Terry A. Britton ISBN: 157851746X Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: 04 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor ISBN: 1578518520 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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