BCG - The Boston Consulting Group

• To the Reader
• Introduction
• The Bifurcating Market
• The New Middle-class Consumer
• Cheap Is Good
• Spanning the Poles
• All Treasure, All the Time
• When the Calculus Shifts
• In a Pickle
• Nickels and Dimes
• Left in the Dust?
• Taking Action
• About Our Sources and Methodology
• Acknowledgments
• Index

This book tells the story of how middle-class consumers around the world are reshaping the consumer-goods market by trading down to low-price products and services, trading up to premium ones, and avoiding the boredom and low value that increasingly characterize the middle. These consumers, mostly women, are better educated, have more disposable income, and are buying with more sophistication than ever. They have a sense of purpose and power when they buy and use goods and services. Consumption, for them, is not a tedious necessity or an unavoidable chore. It is a serious effort to use money wisely, it is an important obligation to the people they care for, and it is a treasure hunt—for goods and services that may be cheap or dear, technically sophisticated or whimsical, basic or feature-laden, but are always functionally and emotionally significant.

Michael J. Silverstein is a senior partner and managing director at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Over the past 25 years at the firm, he has worked with consumer goods, retail, and services companies, helping them create more than $10 billion in new consumer products and services. He is an authority on consumer behavior, spending, and innovation.