The market for the luxury-good industry is on the decline. Recent reports show that a higher unemployment rate, coupled with a customers fears, has decreased the amount of money the average household spends on both essential and nonessential items, but es

The argument that luxury-good industry is on a decline and that luxury retailers should refocus their attention to lower-priced markets is not logically coherent, since it ignores certain crucial assumptions.

First, the argument that higher unemployment rate and consumers' fear has decreased the money spent by the average household, assumes that sample factors are not only representative but they also have a causal relationship with the market declination. There is a plethora of factors that should also be considered such as political instability, tax fluctuation in luxury goods, average wage oscillation etc that could cause the same effects. Furthermore, the author provides no real data on the percentage of unemployment rate increase. If the rate is high but the total number of unemployed people is still considered low by the international standards then it cannot be considered a valid argument. In addition, the introduction of "fear" is undefined since there is no justification of what the consumers might fear and can lead to numerous interpretations.

Second, the argument, which also feels like a completely other issue, relating with the definition and the nature of what a luxury-good is, is too abstract to be considered solid. For western civilization, most daily used goods are not considered luxury goods. In contrast, in underdeveloped countries, items like a microwave kitchen, a smartphone or even a simple TV are truly considered luxury goods. The author should have set the reference context of this assumption or give a few examples of what a luxury-good refers to.

Finally, the argument that correlates luxury-good market declination with the whole economic climate is a flawed analogy assumption. Author provides no report of a total market percentage that the luxury-good market actually possess. The general economic climate could be flourishing while letting luxury-good market in decline. If the luxury-good market owned a large slice of the total market pie then it could be possible that there is a strong trend relationship, a case that we cannot arbitrary assume. This also negates the claim that luxury-good market would be the first to decrease in the present economic climate since there is no obvious correlation.

To sum up, the argument is not completely sound. The evidence in support of the conclusion that luxury-goods industry is in decline and that luxury retailers should refocus their attention to lower-priced markets does little to prove that conclusion, since it does not address the assumptions already aforementioned. On top of that, the argument might have been strengthened by pointing out a country or region that the argument is based on, by introducing some concrete reference sources relating to an official market research on the specific industry which proves that unemployment rate and fear are the primary reasons for luxury-industry declination, that luxury-goods are specific items that correspond to a named country or region and a scientific report that bolsters luxury-good industry to be the major economic portion in that country or region.