Search results

Despite the fact that online is predicted to become the major channel for luxury purchases by 2025, there is scant literature related to online luxury buying behavior, mainly in the context of Generation Y (Gen Y) consumers in emerging societies like India. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to empirically test the theoretical framework developed to assess the factors influencing luxury consumers' online shopping behavior based on the stimulus-organism-response model and technology acceptance model (TAM).

Data were collected from 233 Gen Y luxury consumers in India via purposive sampling method. The study used AMOS and PROCESS SPSS Macro to establish the overall fit of the measurement model and examine the hypotheses.

The findings revealed that perceived usefulness of buying online, perceived ease of buying online, economic benefit and webstore quality have significant impact on online luxury purchase intention. The perceived experiential values and perceived functional values mediate the influence of antecedent variables on online luxury purchase intention. Bandwagon luxury consumption behavior (BLCB) moderates the relationship between perceived functional values and online purchase intention.

This is one of the pioneer studies conducted to understand the influence of BLCB on value–intention relationship in online space among Gen Y luxury consumers. This study will help luxury retailers to create targeted strategies for this segment.

The young generation (Gen Z and Millennials) has a different set of values that the brand needs to interpret better. There is evidence of a correlation between luxury brands and sustainability. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of consumers’ consumption values (functional, experiential, and symbolic) and ethical values (ascribed responsibility) through flow experience (FE) on consumers’ attitudes towards sustainable luxury brands (SLB) in the young generation based on stimulus-organism-response theory.

The research design consists of Studies 1 and 2. Study 1 used a structured questionnaire on a sample of 396 respondents based on the scales of luxury consumption values. For Study 2, the authors collected 30 qualitative responses from the target group (young Indian shoppers who indulge in luxury fashion shopping frequently) via open-ended essays. PLS-SEM was used to test the hypothesised relationship.

As per the results, functional values are the most significant predictors of FE, followed by AR, experiential values and symbolic values. The study also discovered that FE has a substantial influence on the formation of attitudes towards sustainable luxury fashion brands. The qualitative findings were in line with the quantitative findings, except that the respondents have reservations with respect to the authenticity of sustainable initiatives by the brands.

As the young consumer represents the future development of the luxury market, it is crucial to fully comprehend their view with respect to consumption value and AR in an emerging economy like India, which constitutes one of the highest populations of young consumers. The new research framework will also assist luxury brand managers in the formulation of efficient brand marketing strategies for sustainable luxury apparel.

Previous studies have mainly focused on FE in the context of the service industry. There are limited studies exploring the impact of achieving FE in framing the attitude towards sustainable luxury fashion brands. Academic research in the area so far has limited its scope to quantitative and a few qualitative studies, but this study provides a mixed-methods approach in a luxury setting, contributing to the study’s distinctiveness.

Consumers can spend their disposable income on hedonic consumption or save for the future. Their preferences were altered by the prolonged life and livelihood-threatening experiences of the pandemic. This paper aims to study the spillover effect of the pandemic experience on consumer savings attitudes and hedonic purchase preferences in the new normal.

The authors conducted 35 in-depth interviews with consumers in India. The data were analysed thematically.

The results showed that when fear of life and negative emotions of the pandemic persisted, consumers became short-term focused, moved towards materialism and increased hedonic spending. Alternatively, individuals who faced substantial financial hardships resorted to an increased preference for savings. The relationship between changes in savings orientation and hedonic consumption was found to be moderated by consumer's individual differences in financial vulnerability and life history strategies.

As the trend towards increased hedonic consumption and preference for luxury products continues, the study findings can be used to devise effective marketing strategies to tap the emerging segment of mass luxury consumption.

Despite ample work being conducted in the hedonic consumption domain, it has not been studied in conjunction with savings orientation, a significant determinant. This research links personal savings orientation with hedonic spending and substantiates that purchase decisions are cognitively weighted as a choice of discretionary spending against the opportunity to save.

This study aims to assess both internal and external factors that impact consumer attitudes and intentions with regard to the purchase of non-deceptive counterfeits. More specifically, this study examines the impact of integrity, brand consciousness, performance risk and social risk on the attitude and in turn on the purchase intention of consumers towards non-deceptive counterfeits.

A total of 679 valid responses from the university students in two different Gulf countries, namely, Oman (264) and Qatar (415) were gathered through a self-administered structured questionnaire and analysed through partial least square‐structural equation modeling.

All the predictors of consumer attitude appeared significant in both country samples except integrity. However, brand consciousness appeared insignificant in the sample of Oman. In addition, Purchase intention towards the non-deceptive counterfeits was significantly predicted by attitude and subjective norm in both samples.

In the domain of non-deceptive counterfeit literature, the findings of the study will substantially add value. Particularly, in the Gulf country context, the impact of internal psychological and external risk factors on the attitude and purchase intention of non-deceptive counterfeits will enhance the insights of existing literature and extend and proof the robustness of the theory of reasoned action.

This study aims to understand consumers' attitudes towards luxury products based on the stereotype content model, brand anthropomorphism and the psychological ownership theory.

The authors collected data from Indian consumers using the online questionnaire survey method. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS AMOS version 24 and PROCESS SPSS macro, using both mediation and moderated mediation models.

The findings suggest that increasing brand anthropomorphism and stereotypes enhance consumers' attitudes through a significant mediating role of brand credibility. The results also show that consumers' psychological ownership positively moderates the mediating path via brand credibility from low to high levels.

In doing so, this study contributes to the literature on luxury retail by examining how brand stereotypes and brand anthropomorphism impact consumers' attitudes towards luxury brands through the mediating role of brand credibility and the moderating role of psychological ownership. In the process, the study provides an understanding of Indian consumers' attitudes in the context of the Indian luxury retail sector.

Despite the severe impact of the COVID-19, Maldives was one of the top destinations which witnessed decent tourist arrival amid the pandemic. This study aims to analyze luxury hospitality experiences of guests amid COVID-19 pandemic.

This study is exploratory in nature. This study analyses 4,302 real-time customer reviews using sentiment and thematic analysis with the help of NVIVO 12 plus and Leximancer.

The findings suggest travel products as well as services associated with luxury resorts needs to be revisited. Staff needs to be more professional and must be proactive while redesigning services specially in situations like pandemic. While redesigning services in situations like pandemic, staff needs to be proactive, professional and must follow all protocols. Major negative experiences included long waiting time to avail frill services, privacy intrusion by bloggers and influencers, service quality issues. We recommend enhancing service quality followed by investing more in training and development, increasing the number of foreign languages spoken by staff and disseminating localized culinary experiences will enhance the experience quality with guests.

This study has several limitations: first, this study limited itself to 15 luxury resorts of Maldives, which may not serve as a true representation of all luxury resorts of Maldives. The next limitation of this study is that the authors have collected customer reviews from TripAdvisor only, and the reviews were only in English language.

The findings of the research can be beneficial for the policymakers, hospitality practitioners and academicians who study luxury tourism industry to carve appropriate strategies for enhancing the customers’ luxury experience like leveraging customization in all areas and enhancing service quality, food quality, training and development of employees.

Maldives has become one of the most expensive traveler destinations and is home to world’s most expensive resorts. This study is original in nature and has a forward-looking approach which studies the disruptive effect of pandemic, intangible nature of luxury as a concept can be used by hospitality industry to redesign the luxury customer experience which can improve marketing strategies aiming to potentiate this niche. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study will be the first one to capture the real customer experiences of luxury resorts of Maldives.

This study aims to experimentally investigate branded functional beverage (BFB) consumption behaviour post-COVID-19 through the lens of a conceptual framework built on three renowned behaviour modification models and to critically evaluate how well subjective norms serve as a moderator in the consumption behaviour relating to such beverage products.

A conceptual model was developed based on the tenets of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), health belief model (HBM) and value-attitude-behaviour (VAB) model. The study was performed on a convenience sample of 537 respondents aged 18 and up from diverse regions in India using the PLS-SEM method. A total of 444 useable questionnaires were utilized for the final data analysis.

Given the post-pandemic setting, the perceived benefits of BFBs significantly influenced its purchase intention and consumption behaviour. It could grossly impact the media's role (information about COVID-19) and the consumers' interest in healthy food. The study revealed that the information about COVID-19 (role of media) strongly increased interest in healthy food, whereas interest in healthy food positively influenced purchase intention of functional beverages. With interest in healthy food as a “mediator”, the role of media (information about COVID-19) positively influenced purchase intention. It is worth noting the moderating role of subjective norms in the relationship between the role of media (information about COVID-19) and interest in healthy food and that between interest in healthy food and BFB purchase intention.

Food marketers shall skillfully use “opinion” leaders and subject experts in marketing communication campaigns to popularize the link between good food and immunity through COVID-19 and healthy diet-related messages sent via a suitable media platform. This would grab food consumers' interest in BFBs and persuade them to incorporate such items in their daily food milieu. Consumers need to be assured that consuming “functional” products would deliver health benefits and upkeep their body immunity in the post-COVID-19 times.

There has been minimal research on the link between perceived benefits, the role of media, interest in healthy food and consumption behaviour on functional beverages in the post-COVID-19 setting. Moreover, subjective norms have never been probed as a moderator in the consumer behaviour studies on BFBs. This pioneering study applied the tenets of the TPB, HBM and VAB model in the context of post-pandemic functional beverage consumption. The altered study settings caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the context of a developing economy like India have amplified the research value of this study.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of fashion influencer measures on consumers' purchase intentions and the mediation of attitudes to understand the phenomenon of influencer marketing in the backdrop of the fashion industry.

The present study employs a conceptual model based on extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) with added perceived trust. Data were collected from 341 participants from different regions of the country and analysed using direct path analysis and mediation technique.

The study found that attitudes toward fashion influencers are positively influenced by perceived trust, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. However, perceived behavioural control is not directly related to purchasing intents in the research model. The results confirmed that attitudes have a positive association with purchase intentions both directly and indirectly (partially mediation).

The study advocates market practitioners and advertisers to acknowledge the increasing importance of influencer marketing and the promotion of their fashion offerings in the setting of emerging fashion industry.

The present study adds crucial value to enhance the understanding of fashion influencer marketing in the Indian context. This research offers several insights into the continually growing knowledge domain of influencer marketing by predicting the direct relationships with purchase intents and the mediation of attitudes.

Despite the extensive stimulus–organism–response (SOR) literature, little attention has been paid to the role of marketing activity as a key environmental stimulus, and there is a dearth of research examining the interplay between emotions and cognition on consumer behaviour, as well as the sequential effects of emotions on cognition. To address these gaps, this study aims to develop a revised SOR model by incorporating Kahneman’s fast and slow thinking theory to investigate the impulse buying of affordable luxury fashion (ALF).

The authors use outlet stores at Bicester village (BV) in England as the research context for ALF shopping. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse a survey sample of 633 consumers with a BV shopping experience.

The authors find that impulse buying of ALF arises from the interplay of emotional and cognitive factors, as well as a sequential and dual process involving in-store stimuli affecting on-site emotion and in-store browsing.

This study reveals that brand connection has a significant and negative influence on the relationship between on-site emotion and in-store browsing, advancing the SOR paradigm and reflecting the interactive effect of human emotion and reasoning on the impulse buying of ALF items.

Insights into consumers’ impulse buying offer practical implications for luxury brand management, specifically for ALF outlet retailers and store managers.

The results suggest a robust sequential effect of on-site emotion towards in-store browsing on impulse buying, providing updated empirical support for Kahneman’s theory of System 1 and System 2 thinking.

This study explores reasons for and against secondhand luxury (SHL) fashion adoption among young consumers in an emerging nation, India. As a trend, SHL has witnessed tremendous growth in the past few years, but scholarly interest remains scant.

Drawing from an interpretivist paradigm, this study uses an exploratory qualitative approach with 26 semi-structured interviews with SHL buyers, analyzed using NVivo software.

The findings shed significant light on value drivers and find support for status value, uniqueness value, quality value and monetary value, while adding the role of emotional value in reasons for SHL adoption. The results reveal an interesting trait of Indian consumers: price, fashion and celebrity association outweigh sustainability concerns, where an attitude–behavior gap is observed. Also, the findings add depth to risk perceptions as a major reason against SHL adoption.

While most existing studies have only focused on the motivational drivers, this study offers in-depth insights into the growing SHL literature by drawing attention to the enablers and equally important inhibitors by applying the novel Behavioral Reasoning Theory. It also intends to enhance practitioner knowledge in understanding a culturally diverse market and developing strategies relevant to a new set of consumers. The study calls for SHL retailers to sensitize young consumers in India about the sustainability aspect of SHL consumption, which is currently less appreciated.