How can a sportswear firm make demand for its products more inelastic?
The best approach to this is going to come from superior branding combined with adjusting their intended market segment. Excellent examples of this come from companies like Nike which have brands that, alone, are valued apart from cost. Their marketing associates their brands with human accomplishment, with self improvement, with immaterial concepts like “victory against all odds” and “destiny”. Against that backdrop, price becomes much less significant. If you’re buying their products because you want to reach your maximum potential, the idea of buying cheaper products, or even less of their product at a higher price, is much less attractive. They drive with emotion, by celebrating human accomplishment and mourning human failings: things which do not go away when running shoes become more expensive. If it’s just a shirt, just a pair of shoes, just a pair of jogging pants or a sweatshirt, there are a million of them out there. If we don’t want to spend the money, we’ll wear the shoes a