Some goods sell better specifically because they're expensive, not despite it

Economist Thorstein Veblen argued in 1899 that for certain luxury items, a higher price can increase demand rather than reduce it, because owning the item signals wealth or status to others. These 'Veblen goods,' designer handbags or exclusive watches, invert the ordinary law of demand and defeat the usual logic that cheaper always sells more. The pattern has since been documented in real pricing experiments with branded luxury goods.

— Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class — Macmillan, 1899