We examine a bottom-up approach to consumer and marketing education for subsistence consumers, that is, those with low income and relatively lower literacy levels. They face a variety of cognitive and other constraints, with difficulty in abstract thinking being a central issue that is critical for effective decision-making. We study the impact of marketplace literacy education, with its unique bottom-up approach, on abstract thinking in the consumer domain. We test the effectiveness of a bottom-up educational approach, which covers concrete examples before abstract concepts, compared to the reverse sequence of a top-down approach. We find that the bottom-up approach in marketplace literacy education leads to more abstract thinking in the consumer domain compared to a top-down approach. We discuss the implications of this research for consumer affairs.