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Luxury goods consumption has received limited attention in marketing literature in spite of the presence of a significantly big luxury marketing industry. Studies focused on the definition of luxury, commented on the characteristics of luxury buyers, researched the buying motivations of luxury consumers; but no study integrated them all to present an integrated framework of luxury goods consumption. Based on review of extant literature on the subject, this paper is an attempt to bridge this gap. The paper primarily serves two distinct but related purposes. Firstly, a comprehensive review of literature on luxury marketing is presented with an attempt to analyze luxury goods consumption from three different perspectives which are product or brand perspective, consumer characteristics perspective and buying motivations perspective. And, secondly an integrated conceptual framework is presented which brings together the three different perspectives of luxury goods consumption.
INTRODUCTION
The concept of 'luxury' exists since a long time and has been aspired by many for ages. At the same time luxury was detested by many others for reasons of its own. In the popular sense of the word, 'luxury' is something related to indulging in self-pleasure and something which is not a necessity. The hedonistic philosophy of Epicurus approves the pleasures of life and hence the enjoyment of luxury. But the Aristotelian philosophy of following the mean course between the extremes condemns the excessive man: 'On small objects of expenditure he spends much and displays a tasteless showiness... And all such things he will do, not for honor's sake but to show off his wealth, and because he thinks he is admired for these things' (Dubois et al, 2001). This history of controversy regarding luxury consumption has been researched and reported by Berry (1994) and has also been studied by Twitchell (2003). Twitchell (2003, p. 43) defines luxury as: "things you have that I think you shouldn't have". But in spite of all the allegations against luxury, it has survived through all these years and is still going strong. The size of luxury goods market was estimated to be around $86 bn in the year 1990 by McKinsey & Co. During the last two decades luxury industry grew at a very fast pace and it achieved sales of $170 bn in 2008...