Sorry, brother, didn't realise you weren't aware of how huge Wal Mart is. They are kind of famous for their approach in the business world. Here:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/index.html
#2, Fortune global 500. They are so crazy good at what they do, they are above oil companies, car companies, you name it.
Sell lots, cheaply. It works, if you do it right. As for my China example, that was off the top of my head, but if you only lasted five days, selling $1 worth of product to 1/5 (20%, actually fits nicely in the 30% of China that makes more than five dollars a day) of the population..that is about 30 million dollars of revenue from 5 days.
Just five days. The average monthly salary in China in 2011 was 4000 yuan plus, about $650 per month or $20 per day. So if you can get a mere dollar of that, yeah.
Which is what businesses like Wal-Mart try to do.
What you are talking about, boutique or niche marketing to the wealthy, can work. But as the global 500 should tell you, it doesn't work nearly as well as selling to as many people as possible. This would apply to air and filters as well.
it's worth noting that nearly all the other top companies on that list -also- sell lots of product cheaply - they sell oil and gas to millions of customers. Or in the case of State, they sell power - to all those Chinese.