Understanding the luxury purchase intentions of young consumers: a qualitative analysis

PurposeThe study intends to investigate the key purchase drivers of luxury brands in India. Given that a major segment of this target audience is the young consumers, the study focuses on determining these antecedents of luxury purchase from a young Indian consumer lens.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses an interpretive research position, employing qualitative techniques in the form of in-depth interviews. In total, 62 respondents were interviewed, and later the transcribed interviews were analyzed using content analysis.FindingsThe study identifies the three main value dimensions that contribute to the final purchase decision: functional, social and emotional. The study also highlights the importance of Internet and web for luxury brands and how young Indian consumer consumes luxury online.Originality/valueResearch on luxury brands is still at a nascent stage. Though variables such as economic value, brand origin, social identity, prestige, self-congruity and so on have been examined in the context of luxury brands in prior studies. However, these studies are restricted because either they were product-specific or actual users of luxury brands were not approached as the sample. Most importantly none of these studies reflect the purchase behavior of young consumers in an emerging market, especially India. Given the growth of luxury brands in India, it would be worthwhile to investigate the factors influencing the customer purchase intention of luxury brands in emerging markets.

Construction and Validation of Indian Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale: The Ice-Scale

Globalization has unlocked and exposed domestic and overseas marketers to superior market opportunities. Additionally, it presents consumers worldwide with a vast number of local and foreign brand choices. Indian consumers, also now, have a broader choice of merchandise at their disposal as economic liberalization and privatization along with globalization have reduced the barriers to trade. In such a setting, the concept of consumer ethnocentrism can deliver deep insights about the preference of consumers toward domestic merchandise. The study aims to develop the Indian Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale (ICE-Scale) and validate the same. Data are collected using a structured questionnaire from urban and rural regions. The study constructed the Indian Consumer Ethnocentrism Scale (ICE-Scale), explored its dimensionality on a sample of 450 respondents, and validated the scale with another sample of 450 using exploratory factor analysis. It was established that the ICE-Scale encompasses two dimensions, namely, protective ethnocentrism and patriotic ethnocentrism. Additionally, the validity testing for the proposed scale and both the constructs were conducted through confirmatory factor analysis. The study advances the existing pool of information in the field of international economics, consumer psychology and global marketing. It also assists domestic producers to get an improved understanding of consumers’ ethnocentric tendencies which in turn would assist them in choosing superior marketing strategies and boosting their sales. The study will not only deliver certain social and policymaking insights to the domestic firms and government but also to the foreign firms functioning or planning to operate in India.

Marketing Implications of Information Processing: Literature Review and Directions for Future Research

Information processing is a series of activities by which stimuli are perceived, transformed into information, and stored (Best et al., 2003). The theory of information processing is becoming increasingly popular in today’s information rich environments. Surprisingly, in literature there is little research and discussion on the marketing implications of information processing. The present study tries to explore the various studies related to the importance of information processing. The study highlights the marketing implications of information processing on Indian consumer. The objective of this study is to help the marketing managers understand the Indian consumers processing of information. Knowing and analyzing the information processing styles of the target consumers based on the important variables studied in this research, will help marketers design and place their marketing programs most effectively. Based on the literature review the paper proposes few research propositions in understanding of marketing implications of information processing.