Search results

Nowadays, more and more Chinese consumers purchase luxury goods on live streaming platforms. However, the existing literature rarely focuses on this emerging phenomenon. This article attempts to construct a theoretical model based on the perceived value theory to explain this phenomenon.

In total, 354 online questionnaires are collected, and the partial least square structural equation model is used to analyze the model empirically.

The results show that consumers' perceived luxury values (financial value, functional value, individual value and social value) have a significant and positive effect on customer engagement, which further leads to purchase intention.

In view of fact that there is a big difference between luxury goods and nonluxury goods, yet the existing literature rarely distinguishes between luxury goods and nonluxury goods in the context of live streaming shopping, this article attempts to use perceived value theory to examine consumers' luxury purchase intentions in live streaming shopping and explores whether customer engagement is a mediating mechanism of perceived luxury values that influences purchase intention in live streaming.

As luxury goods are losing their importance for demonstrating status, wealth or power to others, individuals are searching for alternative status symbols. Recently, individuals have increasingly used conspicuous consumption and displays of experiences on social media to obtain affirmation. This study aims to analyze the effects of luxury and nonluxury experiences, as well as traditional luxury goods on status- and nonstatus-related dimensions.

After presenting the theoretical foundation, the authors conduct a study with 599 participants to compare status perceptions elicited by the conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, luxury experiences and nonluxury experiences. The authors investigate whether experiences that are visibly consumed on Instagram are replacing traditional luxury goods as the most important status symbols. Furthermore, the authors examine the effects of the content shown on nonstatus-related dimensions and analyze whether status perceptions differ between female and male social media communicators. Finally, the authors analyze how personal characteristics (self-esteem, self-actualization and materialism) influence the status perceptions of others on social media.

The results show that luxury goods are still the most important means of displaying status. However, especially for women, luxury experiences are also associated with a high level of social status. Thus, the results imply important gender differences in the perceptions of status- and nonstatus-related dimensions. Furthermore, the findings indicate that, in particular, the individual characteristics of self-actualization and materialism affect status perceptions depending on the posted content.

While the research has already considered some alternative forms of conspicuous consumption, little attention has been given to experiences as status symbols. However, with their growing importance as substitutes for luxury goods and the rise of social media, the desire to conspicuously consume experiences is increasing. The authors address this gap in the literature by focusing on the conspicuous display of luxury and nonluxury experiences on social media.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate market segmentation of affluent Chinese consumers and develop profiles of identified segments for potential target markets for luxury fashion goods.

The data are from the 2006 edition of an annual survey called the “China's New Rich Study”. The respondents form a representative sample of affluent consumers, 18 to 45 years old, residing in China's 12 largest cities. A psychographic segmentation approach is employed to classify these consumers.

Five distinct market segments of affluent Chinese consumers are identified and profiled. Of these segments, three seem the most promising target markets for luxury fashion goods.

When companies understand the similarities and differences between consumer segments as well as the unique characteristics of segments, they have a meaningful basis for selecting receptive target markets and formulating and implementing effective marketing strategies. The findings of this study can be useful not only to companies that offer luxury fashion goods, but also to those targeting the upscale market with a plethora of products and services like yachts, luxury cars, high‐end electronics, resort vacations, and credit cards and other financial services.

This is the first study on segmentation of Chinese consumers for potential target markets for luxury fashion goods. Results reveal heterogeneity among affluent urban Chinese consumers. Strategies for marketing luxury fashion goods to promising target markets in China are outlined on the basis of segment profiles and culturally based motivations for purchasing such goods.

Luxury goods manufacturers have long been hesitant to adopt the internet as a channel of distribution. A luxury brand’s concept of exclusiveness is seemingly incompatible with the ubiquitous accessibility provided by the mass medium internet. The purpose of this paper is to address the apparent contradiction by examining consumer responses to the online accessibility and price display of luxury goods.

Three studies are presented: first, a qualitative pre-study with luxury industry experts is conducted to identify the current managerial discussion on the online distribution of luxury goods. Second, an experiment with 183 high-income individuals is conducted to test the effects of online accessibility on consumer perceived scarcity and desirability. Third, a second experiment with 142 qualified luxury insiders is conducted to test consumer responses to the online accessibility and price display of luxury goods.

Results indicate that the online accessibility of luxury goods does not affect consumer perceived scarcity and, hence, does not dilute brand desirability. This “no-dilution” finding applies to both high- and low-involvement goods and persists independently of whether or not retail prices are explicitly displayed.

Whether or not to sell luxury goods online has been controversially discussed among both marketing scholars and executives. To the authors’ knowledge, the present paper is the first to empirically examine consumer responses to the online accessibility and price display of luxury goods.

The market for luxury is growing rapidly. While there is a significant body of literature on luxury goods, academic research has largely ignored luxury services. The purpose of this article is to open luxury services as a new field of investigation by developing the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings to build the luxury services literature and show how luxury services differ from both luxury goods and from ordinary (i.e. non-luxury) services.

This paper uses a conceptual approach drawing upon and synthesizing the luxury goods and services marketing literature.

This article makes three contributions. First, it shows that services are largely missing from the luxury literature, just as the field of luxury is mostly missing from the service literature. Second, it contrasts the key characteristics of services and related consumer behaviors with luxury goods. The service characteristics examined are non-ownership, IHIP (i.e. intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability), the three additional Ps of services marketing (i.e. people, processes, and physical facilities) and the three-stage service consumption model. This article derives implications these characteristics have on luxury. For example, non-ownership increases the importance of psychological ownership, reduces the importance of conspicuous consumption and the risk of counterfeiting. Third, this article defines luxury services as extraordinary hedonic experiences that are exclusive whereby exclusivity can be monetary, social and hedonic in nature, and luxuriousness is jointly determined by objective service features and subjective customer perceptions. Together, these characteristics place a service on a continuum ranging from everyday luxury to elite luxury.

This article provides suggestions on how firms can enhance psychological ownership of luxury services, manage conspicuous consumption, and use more effectively luxury services' additional types of exclusivity (i.e. social and hedonic exclusivity).

This is the first paper to define luxury services and their characteristics, to apply and link frameworks from the service literature to luxury, and to derive consumer insights from these for research and practice.

Heeding the call for insights into the Sub-Saharan African international marketing context, this study aims to empirically examine consumers' desires and motivations for buying counterfeit luxury goods. It examines influences on consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions related to counterfeit luxury goods in Rwanda, one of Sub-Saharan Africa's fastest-growing economies and growing luxury markets, developing and testing a model examining the effect of social context on personal attributes, providing evidence on economic and social-status factors as drivers for counterfeiting.

The data were collected using an online survey administered in Rwanda to consumers who had previously purchased luxury goods and counterfeits. A total of 312 valid responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This study found that normative and informational influences had a positive effect on Rwandan consumers' attitude toward purchasing counterfeit luxury products, with attitude influencing purchase intentions directly and indirectly, through mediating variable desire for status or through value consciousness and desire for status.

The study contributes to academic research − one of the first empirical studies to examine consumers' desires and motivations for buying counterfeit luxury goods in Sub-Saharan Africa, providing insights that benefit scholars and practitioners seeking to better understand a market where more than half of the world's fastest economies are located.

Counterfeiting is a large business involving the manufacturing or distribution of imitation goods. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated research model that combines neutralisation theory and perceived risk theory to explain consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods.

Of the 280 distributed questionnaires, 230 were returned. Rigorous data filtering was performed to remove problematic data, leaving 213 usable questionnaires for analysis. To validate the proposed hypotheses, PLS analysis (a variance-based structural equation modelling technique) was conducted using Smart-PLS.

The results showed that denial of responsibility, denial of victim, performance risk and social risk are significant predictors of consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods. However, denial of injury, appeal to higher loyalties, condemnation of the condemners, as well as psychological risk and prosecution risks, were found to have no significant relationships with purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods.

The integrated model is useful in predicting consumers’ purchase intention towards counterfeit luxury goods. This study discusses the research findings and concludes with managerial implications and limitations.

This research provides a comprehensive overview of the luxury brand cognitive and affective experience, category ownerships and consumption level of affluent adult consumers in the USA. The purpose of this study was to illuminate generational cohorts’ differences and/or similarities among the consumers regarding collecting behavior of, brand self-congruity toward and emotional brand attachment with fashion luxury brands.

Using a cross-sectional quantitative approach, the authors conducted a national, representative online survey, 443 usable responses were collected from four generational cohorts, namely, older boomers, younger boomers, Generation Xers and Millennials, who reported an annual household income of US$150,000 or more. Descriptive and multivariate statistical analyses were used to provide the empirical findings.

Findings suggest that there are significant differences in the luxury brands they owned the most; Millennials exhibited significantly more frequent purchases of luxury fashion goods for all retail types – both brick-and-mortar and online, as well as upscale and discount-image retailers, compared to older Baby Boomers; and there are clear distinctions of cognitive, affective and behavioral responses toward fashion luxury goods between Millennials and older Baby Boomers. For instance, Millennials are more emotionally attached to luxury fashion brands, they see themselves more aligned with the brand image, and they collect such goods significantly more, compared to the older Baby Boomers.

By providing empirical evidence of contrasting each generational group’s unique consumption behavior in terms of luxury brand goods such as ownership level (accessible vs high-end luxury), retail channel choice behavior, cognitive, affective and behavioral responses toward the luxury fashion goods, the authors provided clear strategies for the luxury brand managers regarding two distinctive segments in the luxury marketplace.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural relationships between brand consciousness, perceived quality, social influences, traits of vanity, the need for uniqueness (i.e. antecedents), Generation Y purchase intentions and behaviour (consequences) towards luxury fashion goods.

An integrative theoretical model is proposed based on social comparison theory, social impact theory, the perceived quality model and theory of uniqueness to predict the antecedents and consequences of Generation Y luxury fashion goods purchase decisions. Using cross-sectional data, a total of 384 sets of valid questionnaires were collected to perform the statistical analysis for the measurement and structural model using the partial least squares path modelling, a variance-based structural equation modelling technique.

Overall, the structural results imply that the proposed model explains 73.1 and 64 per cent of variances to predict the Generation Y luxury fashion goods purchase decisions. As the several indices for evaluation of goodness of model fit, standardised Root Mean Square Residual, geodesic discrepancy, and unweighted least squares discrepancy show a satisfactory result. The results of two-tailed hypotheses reveal that brand consciousness, perceived quality, social influences, traits of vanity and the need for uniqueness influence Generation Y purchase intention. Moreover, perceived quality and social influences impact purchase behaviour but brand consciousness, traits of vanity and the need for uniqueness do not seem to be significant in explaining the variance in Generation Y purchase behaviour. Furthermore, Generation Y purchase intention is statistically related to purchase behaviour.

There is a lack of empirical evidence and understanding on the influences of consumer purchase intention and behaviour towards luxury fashion goods among the Generation Y. Generation Y is likely to purchase and consume luxury fashion products, and it is important to have a deeper understanding of this market segment.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the effect of religiosity and culture on Nigerian Muslim consumer’s intention to purchase luxury goods.

The survey included a sample of 372 Nigerian Muslims from the middle and upper-income groups who live in Lagos and Kano in Nigeria.

Plenty of luxury brands are seeking to find ways to overgrow in emerging markets. Focussing on Nigeria, this study identifies Nigerian people’s cultural orientation, religious beliefs and examines the social and personal variables affecting the consumers’ purchasing intention for luxury goods. This study stresses that Nigerian consumers’ intention to purchase luxury products are impacted by attitude, subjective norms and culture. However, Nigerian people’s intention to purchase luxury goods is not influenced by religious beliefs and Islam morals. While culture has a significant relationship with both attitudes towards behaviour and subjective norms, the religious beliefs encourage both subjective norms and a positive attitude towards the behaviour.

This study has limitations in connection with two of its major objectives. The study applied the perspective of Nigerian Muslims. Thus, the research will not be able to clarify the fact that beyond this limited geographical area. Future research may widen the focus on cultural and religious beliefs on the intention to purchase luxury goods by adding other elements, such as normative beliefs and attitudinal beliefs.

The findings of the research define some implications for marketers with regard to the importance of social norms and religion in point of increasing the purchasing intention for luxury goods. Findings reflect that Nigerian consumers are impacted by subjective norms and cultural orientation. This means that luxury consuming is seen to achieve social recognition in the society. These results show that improving social acceptance through luxury goods consumption may create profitable outcomes for luxury brand firms.

The attractive findings of the study proposed that luxury brand managers should balance their investment in terms of the use of word-of-mouth, reference groups and fashion magazines to develop a favourable attitude towards luxury brands through. Although cultural values, references groups and consumer’s beliefs critically matter for luxury consuming, religious beliefs of Nigerian consumers have no effect on consumer’ purchase intention for a luxury product.