Over a decade ago I spent a year living in Malawi in southeast Africa working with a woman’s craft cooperative. My days were spent sitting under baobab trees listening to the women’s stories as they sewed skirts and dresses out of traditional African material, known as kitenge, and strung seeds one by one into intricate jewelry.

All these years later I can still go into my closet, see the yellow and green handmade skirt hanging there and be transported back to that time—the wet sand slipping beneath my sandals, the hot sun beating on my back. Although my life looks entirely different now that I own a condo in Manhattan, I’m married, and I work a 9-5 schedule, I still feel connected to that year of my life in a way that I haven’t felt about anything since.

Recently this got me thinking: What if brands could bottle this kind of emotional experience into the products they sell? What if you could go to a store in Anytown, USA, purchase a skirt made by women in Africa, and feel a direct connection to those whose stories have been woven into the fabric?

Welcome to the Experience Economy, a term coined by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, to describe a world where brands move beyond selling undifferentiated products and toward creating experiences.

In some ways spending money to create an emotional connection seems like it would be better left to a therapist. This is especially true at a time when companies are losing money and trying to simply stay afloat. In actuality, offering consumers connection and brand experiences is more relevant and lucrative than ever. Through a combination of great online and offline storytelling, quality products and services, conscious design and community engagement, consumers will want to buy your product because they will want to be a part of your story.

When I think of the Experience Economy, I think of Starbucks. The coffee company took a commodity that costs an average of 10 cents per cup and turned it into a product they can charge upwards of $5 for by creating an environment where people want to linger to sip their coffee. Every detail of a Starbucks has been well-thought out: the unique music, the comfortable chairs and dim lighting, and the feeling that drinking a cup coffee is a luxurious, communal activity.

Experiences can also be products in and of themselves. In his book Future Shock from 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote about an “experiential industry” that would crop up in the future, where people would pay for life-changing experiences. Think of Richard Branson and his $250,000 flight to outer space and you can see the future is already here.

Cutting-edge start-ups have realized the power—and price tag—that can be attached to experiences. IfOnly members, for example, pay top-dollar for experiences they couldn’t buy anywhere else, like a $2,000 Greenmarket Tour in Manhattan's Union Square with Chef April Bloomfield, followed by a meal at her famous restaurant The Spotted Pig. Another once-in-a-lifetime-experience: attending the world premiere of Justin Bieber’s new film Believe and taking a photo with Justin himself for a cool two grand.

"The future of luxury is not more cashmere sweaters," says IfOnly founder, Trevor Traina. “It’s experiences that mark our milestones we share with friends and family.”

I agree with Traina—and it seems I’m not the only one.

We are bombarded by cheap content and an overabundance of stuff--and we no longer have time to sift through it all. Instead, some try to avoid overload altogether, insisting on Digital Sabbaths, where they turn off all devices for the weekend, or extreme meditation, spending prolonged periods of time without speaking, gesturing or eye contact. More and more we are unsubscribing from email marketing and resisting accumulating more material things.

Yet we still need to make purchases. In his provocative new book, Stuffocation: How We’ve Had Enough of Stuff and Why Experience Matters More Than Ever, James Wallman writes that “we’re not all about to become ascetics, head for the hills, and go live naked in caves.” Instead these “new consumers” will become more “experientialist,” as Wallman calls it, finding status, identity, happiness, and meaning in experiences. This means that if brands want to connect with—and grab the attention of—this new breed of shopper, they will need to curate events, create emotional connections, tell great stories, and create sticky conversations.

I should know.

Towards the end of 2013 I began to feel suffocated by the idea that success in today’s society meant accumulating more and more stuff. I thought back to my days in Malawi when I had almost no material possessions and yet was happier than I have ever been. So I decided to start a blog experiment: For all of 2014, I committed to not buy material things. Instead I would only spend money on experiences and at the end of the year I would see if I was happier. Because I’m not an ascetic I outlined the parameters of what I could buy: meals out, groceries, plants, art, gifts for others, donations to causes I care about, activities, such as movies, yoga, and manicures, books, art supplies, educational opportunities, such as classes and lectures, and necessities like toothpaste and haircuts.

This may be an extreme reaction against the seemingly never-ending treadmill of feel-good purchasing, but the decision was well-informed: Studies show buying experiences makes us happier than material purchases.

There is one caveat to my ban on buying more stuff. If purchasing the item could be seen as an experience in itself, I will make an exception. What I learned from the skirt I bought in Malawi, was that a material thing can become an experience through vivid storytelling, beautiful craftsmanship, and a sense of substance, authenticity and passion.

I’m not alone. People are becoming more conscious of where the products they buy come from, whether it’s the salmon they purchase at Whole Foods or the sweater they covet from Eileen Fisher. Brands have picked up on—and are now catering to—this transition. Online retailers like https://zady.com/ are a reaction against “fast fashion,” where customers buy throw-away goods. By focusing on high-quality, handmade, local products and telling the stories of the artisans who make each piece, Zady turns shopping into a curated experience, where craftsmanship and heritage are key. Clicking on the link for the ZigZag Sweater by Pendleton, for example, will open up a treasure trove of beautiful photographs, but also a section called “Beyond the Label,” which gives in-depth information about the brand story as well as pictures of the team and scenes from the studio.

There is no one-size-fits-all formula to creating a great brand experience.

For the founder of Sweet Roots NYC, Marisa Smith, it is about bringing together her community of health-conscious eaters who order customized menus delivered to their door every week, for an intimate dinner with fresh, local food and great conversation. For Story, a retail space in Manhattan that rotates its merchandise and even its floor plan and fixtures every one to two months, experience is about creating engagement, whether through offering pasta making classes in its space or talks with TED superstars. All of this engagement doesn’t mean Story isn’t focused on selling. In fact, Story’s founder is Rachel Shechtman who has served as a brand consultant for Kraft, TOMS shoes and Lincoln, companies that are very much focused on turning a profit. And she is too.

The lesson here is this--embed everything you do with a bit of who you are. Take it from the women I worked with in Malawi who understood three key points that are critical to creating brand experiences today: the power of craftsmanship, the power of authenticity and the power of getting to know your customer. Each piece the women produced was made by hand, the same way the women in their village had been taught to make clothing for generations. The women knew their product made shoppers happy by talking to them, asking what they wanted and iterating from there.

The result: ten years later I still feel a connection to my skirt and the women who made it. That’s an experience I’d be willing to spend money on over and over again.