I've been trying to buy a toaster for the last two months. People seem to either get the cheapest models, or some get "the Smeg" or another expensive name bran

I've been trying to buy a toaster for the last two months. People seem to either get the cheapest models, or some get "the Smeg" or another expensive name brand that has the same designer product in a zillion colours. There are a few mid-price models (like Bosch) that still seem to be manufactured "locally", but for some reason they are hard to find at the moment. You can't compete with the stream of cheap crap from China (I'm not implying that all of those are bad; just brand labels slapped on random products). The question is if you can become "the Smeg" and have people pay extra for your name. That sort of brand recognition will take a lot of time and effort, and need to be aimed at a certain kind of customer that has both money and cares beyond the appliance's function.