Models of Consumer Behaviour in Luxury Goods Retail

INTRODUCTION

The place of luxury goods in the modern world has turned into a very important concept for people, and for marketers it has become useful to read not only people’s behaviour but also their individual attitudes towards luxury items, especially the young people of the modern world.

In the modern world, companies accomplish some profit and goals with the help of thorough information research of consumer behaviour. The companies improve the capability of earning higher customer loyalty with the help of consumer behaviour and consequently it is considered as one of the most important concept by the organizations. Consumer behaviour is well-defined as the study of consumers and the actions used by them to select, use, and dispose of the products or services (Solomon 2013). Although, researching consumer behaviour is a multifaceted task but understanding the deeds of consumers is critical for the success of companies.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR MODEL

Some past information research has come up with several different models to explain the theory of consumer behaviour. The decision making of the behaviour of the consumer to buy consists of five simple processes (Engel, Kollat and Blackwell, 2001):

1. INFORMATION INPUT- it means that when consumers recognize the difference between their expectation and reality, they start to think about it and search for different factors that might cause a transformation, such as own experiences or external stimulations.
2. INFORMATION PROCESSING- Once the problem has been documented, consumers start to explore the information in their memory or the external setting (e.g. relatives, friends).
3. DECISION PROCESS- After they formulate solutions and evaluate them according to the data they have found. This stage is called “alternatives evaluation”. The assessment can be separated into four parts, including evaluation criteria, believes, attitudes and also intentions.
4. DECISION PROCESS VARIABLES- After evaluating each strategy, consumers determine a choice, choosing a plan which is most appropriate for their needs
5. EXTERNAL INFLUENCES- At the end of the process, consumers make their selections and there is a result. Usually, there are two kinds of final outcomes: satisfaction or dissonance between expectation and results.

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SELF-CONCEPT THEORY

Self-concept theory is one of the most important theories to get the appropriate feedback of an individual concerning their decision towards luxury products predominantly for young people.

It might be applied for critical individuality of youngster’s elevation or behaviour towards extravagance items. Youngsters are pulled mainly towards the luxury products. They have stimulating disposition towards the luxury brands in light of the circumstance that expensive brands engage their self-image that may be how they observe themselves and how does society recognize them. The young generations need to join characteristic social meetings and they need to be a piece of variety of inspiration from various sceneries. There are three main concepts of self-concepts theory:

Actual Self Concept – Ideal Self Concept – Social Self Concept

Most of the consumers are displaying themselves by doing varied exercises and eagerness with accumulating their values and culture. For example, age assemblies between sixteen to eighteen years are trying to attempt on a new product like cigarettes, vehicles, and liquor and battling for their slight self-definition obtaining and exhibiting a few qualities and behaviour, it is known as self-competition theory. Youngsters have demonstrated inspirational character towards lust. They also have a diverse identity. Some publicists use celebrity endorsement for pushing their products. In the assembly to personality, broad communications are doing great in light of the fact that some youthful customers like to own those items which are involved with popular Hollywood stars

 

Self-esteem is an attitude toward the self’ that can be considered favourable or unfavourable. Young adults, mainly, are most probable figures to be very aware of their self-esteem (or lack of it) usually because of their physiological changes taking place in their bodies, and the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs of others that also changes as time progresses.

In consumer behavioural standings these needs can be the motivation for the purchase of the called ‘luxury’ products, such as branded fashion and clothing, which can improve a young person recognition and status within his or her key reference groups.

Each culture contains ‘sub-cultures’. One of those called sub cultures is ‘youth culture’, which displays distinguishing attitudes and purchasing behaviour which is recognised by marketers as an extremely valuable market segment. Such distinctive and symbolic choices will frequently lead to young adults being very aware of the luxury brands and having some positive and inspirational attitudes to purchasing such brands. Young people are always determined to conform to group behaviour and to satisfy others and this employs influence over their buying choices.

As young adults become more independent then reference groups, like their sports athletes and music idols, play an increasingly important role in their brand choices. Equally, young people also make consumer choices based on the abolition of what is not acceptable to them, which means they may then be in a situation to conform to a certain subgroup, by being a non-conformant of the conventional.

Culture and Values

For the greatest part of it, culture is brought by learning, as it might come as formal and casual learning or analytical learning. With the help of culture, the consumer can pursuit the diverse items, in the verge of utilizing them the consumer can judge the quality and the worth of the product. By using more ideas, society could be clarified that broad communications are presumptuous distinctive part in marketing of the element.

Values are also not quite the same as culture-to-culture and take an impact on the buying behaviour of customers. The culture might affect consumer behaviour in a variation of ways. It recognizes with backgrounds and convictions that are increased from the public in which an individual grows up. A distinctive example of behaviour could be seen inside the groups. The cultural change takes place at a reasonable pace and might be understood from advertisers as threats or good affluences.

Reference Groups

It is observed that most of the young consumer desire to relate themselves with the reference group. Buyer’s associates with the numerous groups, yet wish to associates together with others reference groups. The young buyer desires to relate themselves with some sort of contact, bid, appeal and so out as a part of reference gatherings, it gives them power or a safe bet as a component of part of those groups.

There different types of reference groups, which may have a swift or an indirect effect on attitude, conduct, and mentally of the self-image. The essential reference group is considered as a person that has continuous contact with family or companions, hold the strongest effect over the people. Even that, the secondary group involves the person that has less contact, as contrast with the reference group for instance unions inside the association. Nevertheless, regarding whether an individual appears to be, or tries to transform itself into a part of a specific assembly, the gathering can, without much of a stress, affect the individual qualities and behavioral pattern. The effect a reference groups that grips an individual may be seen as positive or negative especially while making the marketing strategies.

As specified by specialists’, attitude is a universally handy progression of individuals, reason, or issues. State of mind undertakes a fundamental part when the buyer purchases something from the business. Consumer has either a positive and negative outlook towards luxury products. Individuals associate indulgence alongside taste, quality, and high-class with great and terrible taste. Lower professional class individuals have changed character towards the extravagances items, continually rich individuals have a positive attitude towards the luxury  products.

In the modern era, people, young people more specifically, have become very mindful about their social status and this has extremely impacted the buying behavior of consumers. Young people are starting to feel anxious about their social status and to maintain their status very high-class, they show more interest to luxury products. This means that social status impacts the behaviors of consumers and is seen as highly important concept for the marketers and organizations. According to this theory, the need of preservation of the social status has enforced the young people to purchase luxury products and consequently, the companies providing extravagance products for these people has faced great flourishing in recent years. Young people prefer to buy products according to their social status, as they have no attachment with the products or the pleasure associated with it. Therefore, social status effects the buying behaviours of customers widely and change in their social class, changes the behavior of consumers rapidly.

So it’s concluded that consumer behaviour in relations with young people towards luxury products is one of the most important factor in the modern world because of the growth of request of these products. It is noticed that young adults want very much these products and then their buying behaviors affects the company or brand. The theories provided in this paper show that the concept of consumer behaviour and give the information about the reaction of consumer behaviours to luxury products predominantly of young people. It is analysed with the help of the theories that young people choose greatly luxury products and the concept of social class, attitude, culture and values influence the buying behavior of youthful people.

 

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