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.

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 investigates the credit supervision issue in rural e-commerce. By studying the trading strategies of buyers and sellers under different credit supervision measures and the impact of different pricing strategies on the trading strategies of both parties, this paper proposes regulatory suggestions for the increasingly severe credit problems in rural e-commerce.

In the online agricultural product transaction between farmers and consumers, both parties' decision-making is a dynamic process. Using the copying dynamic model of the evolutionary game, this study establishes two evolutionary game models to explore the factors affecting credit supervision in the rural e-commerce transaction process. Then, the study provides corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.

First, credit supervision measures implemented by rural e-commerce platforms and the Government's legal system construction and infrastructure construction guarantees influence both parties' trust choices in rural e-commerce transactions. Second, price is a key factor affecting both parties' trading strategies. In the case of relatively fair prices, the higher the proportion of farmers who choose “low price” and “honest transaction” strategies, the easier that is for consumers to choose to trust farmers. In contrast, the higher the price, the higher the proportion of consumers who choose the “trust farmers” strategy, and the more willing farmers are to choose honest transactions.

This work develops a new approach for analyzing rural e-commerce credit supervision. Moreover, this study helps establish and improve the credit supervision mechanism of rural e-commerce and further realize the long-term sustainable development of the rural economy.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to appreciate and understand why brands are an essential asset to the company and how they can enhance business value, understand the factors needed to grow brands in the growth stages and evaluate the choices that start-up companies have to grow their brand in competitive and growing markets.

Mamaearth was born as a direct-to-consumer brand in 2016 by a couple who could not find chemical-free, safe products for their child. The company that introduced as a baby-care brand soon consolidated itself to play in the space of personal care category (targeting millennials), and by 2020, it was earning majority of its revenue from skincare. It started by leveraging the power of social media space and online commerce and slowly moved to be a national brand with offline footprint and mass-media communication. In its growth journey, it acquired many brands and launched a few to cater to the specialized needs of its target audience. As the company grew, attracted impressive investors and started clocking profits, it aspired for an initial public offering (IPO). Varun and Ghazal Alagh, the founders of Mamaearth, knew that to refloat an IPO and to grow the company further, they needed to redefine their portfolio and marketing strategy. They had a choice to either invest in building a broader portfolio – organically or inorganically – or expand across geographies. Both were an option, albeit expensive, which could cost Mamaearth its profitability.

This case is intended for discussion in undergraduate and graduate management courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The New York Times has suggested replacing sustainable fashion with responsible fashion, emphasizing the need for joint efforts by both individual consumers and retailers to take responsibility for their own decisions and actions. This study seeks to investigate the mechanism that activates individuals' personal social responsibility (PSR) and its association with their perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) from a responsible luxury fashion retailer.

An online experiment was conducted with a nationwide US sample of luxury consumers who were randomly assigned to either individuation or deindividuation groups. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) and multi-group SEM were employed to test the hypotheses.

Individuals' universalism positively affected PSR, which then enhanced their recognition of a responsible luxury retailer’s CSR and led to a greater willingness to pay a premium. More importantly, the positive effect of universalism on PSR was strengthened when consumers’ unique individuality, rather than their deindividuated state, was emphasized. Moreover, the moderating effect of individuation was indirectly transmitted through PSR to perceived CSR, hence reinforcing the relationship between PSR and CSR.

This study significantly advances existing scholarship on sustainable luxury retailing and adds rigor to deindividuation theory by demonstrating the central role of PSR and the moderating effect of individuation in enhancing recognition of a luxury fashion retailer’s CSR commitments. The findings provide luxury fashion retailers with communication and marketing strategies that highlight consumers' unique individuality to more effectively activate their sense of personal responsibility and thereby increase their recognition of the retailer’s CSR.

While consumer preferences for sporting goods have been widely researched within sport management, literature is lacking on aspects of social and environmental sustainability. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the role of social and environmental sustainability for purchase decisions of sportswear and compares them to the role of price and functionality.

Based on a conjoint analysis among 1,012 Europeans, the authors conducted a two-step cluster analysis. First, the authors investigated the number of segments via Ward’s method. Second, the authors ran a k-means analysis based on part-worth utilities from the conjoint analysis.

The authors identified four segments which differ in terms of preferred product attributes, willingness to pay, and sociodemographic, behavioral, and psychographic characteristics: undecided, sustainable, price-focused and function-oriented consumers. Based on this segmentation, the authors found that the importance of social and environmental sustainability is growing, but not among all consumers.

The generalizability of the study is limited since it is not built on a sample representative for the included European countries, it focuses on a single product, and participants are potentially subject to a social desirability bias.

The consumer analysis comprises the uptake of attributes related to social and environmental sustainability. The authors thereby address a literature gap as previous research (thematizing sporting goods) in the sport management field has often neglected sustainability elements despite their rapidly growing importance within the sport sector.

South Africa is increasingly becoming an attractive market for luxury fashion brands due to the growing middle-income consumer segment, which is perceived to be upwardly mobile. Despite evidence of black South African's exhibition of heightened interest in conspicuous consumption (CC), there seems to be limited research addressing the drivers and implications of such behaviour. This study aims to investigate the antecedents of CC by middle-income black South Africans and the marketing implications thereof.

This study employed a survey questionnaire approach and a quantitative methodology for primary data collection. Data were gathered from a sample of 170 respondents across South Africa and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) through SPSS and Mplus software. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test model fit, reliability and validity of measurement instruments, while path modelling was used to test hypotheses adopted by this report.

Among the major findings made by this report was that social class signalling positively influenced CC. In contrast, CC was not predicted by status consumption (SC). This study concluded that social factors motivated the CC of luxury fashion brands by middle-income black South Africans.

This study's key recommendations were for marketing professionals to imbue overt status cues in their brand campaigns to drive the consumption of luxury fashion brands. Future studies could investigate whether or not the findings of this study are applicable across ethnic demographics in South Africa.

The study extends the discourse of the antecedents of ethnic consumer behavioural patterns in a historically segregated market. It weighs in on the growing research addressing factors driving the middle-income population from emerging economies to consume luxury fashion brands conspicuously.