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Luxury consumption
Definition of prestige and luxury
For centuries, people worldwide have satisfied themselves with the possession of beautiful goods. As a result, luxury products have been the subject of intensive discussion and debate. Today, consumers have at their disposal a larger discretionary income than ever before. Income has increased throughout the hierarchy scale, but most dramatically in the highest social classes. Current consumers are willing to offer considerably higher amounts of money for luxury products.
Traditionally, luxury goods or status goods have been defined as goods for which the mere use or display of a particular branded product brings prestige to the owner, apart from any functional utility ([13] Grossman and Sharpiro, 1988). [6] Deeter-Schmelz et al. (1995) defined prestige preference as "an individual's preference for shopping in clothing stores where the combination of patron status, store type and atmosphere, merchandise price, quality, branding, and fashion combine to create a particular prestige level". [20] Phau and Prendergast (2001) assume that luxury brands "evoke exclusivity, have a well known brand identity, enjoy high brand awareness and perceived quality, and retain sales levels and customer loyalty". Similarly, [1] Beverland (2004) created a luxury brand model with the following dimensions:
- product integrity;
- value-driven emergence;
- culture;
- history;
- marketing; and
- endorsement.
[18] Moore and Birtwistle (2005) are critical towards this model, and assert that other details need to be incorporated in order to build a modern luxury brand. Currently, study of the luxury market is taking a new direction. Because of the unprecedented demand coming from Asian countries, recent research focuses on the cross-cultural comparison of attitudes toward the luxury concept ([8] Dubois and Laurent, 1996; [9] Dubois and Paternault, 1997).
[23] Vigneron and Johnson (1999) defined five values of prestige behaviour combined with five relevant motivations, and from these identified five different categories of prestige consumers. According to [23] Vigneron and Johnson's (1999) categorisation of luxury products, hedonists and perfectionists are more interested in pleasure derived from the use of luxury products, and less interested in the price than quality, product characteristics and performance. These consumers know what they want and use their own judgment, while price exists only as proof of quality. The Veblen, snob and bandwagon effects are evident with...