Empirical Study On Chinese Jewelry Consumption Motivation

At present, China has been the world's largest jewelry consumption market.In 2010, China's jewelry sales totaled approximately 245 billion Yuan, and more than 220 billion Yuan in 2009 grew by 10%. As the raising of the national economy and the rapid growth of middle-income people, jewelry as typical luxury is no longer exclusive to the rich, more and more consumers start to buy jewelry, showing a popularization trend. With the changes in consumption concept, jewelry from simple adornment into hedging products fashion and status symbol, and this kind of changing in functions and concept further stimulates the consumption to jewelry. Faced with such flourishing jewelry market, so important it is for jewelry companies to develop and implement marketing strategies to conform to the perspective of consumers. Therefore, in order to understanding the customer's consumption psychology and consumption purposes, it is necessary to research the jewelry consumption motivation of domestic consumers.So far, the jewelry consumption motivation has not a separate and systematical research, would usually be classified to study as a luxury consumption motivation. However, owing to different cultural background and social values, consumers among various countries and regions have significant differences in behavior; so research on consumption motivation of Western luxury is not necessarily suitable for the reality of China's jewelry market. In addition, the rare and magnificent characteristic endues jewelry itself investment and collection value which could not be underestimated. Therefore, this study basing on literature review and the theory of consumption motivation home and abroad, combing with the unique properties of jewelry and traditional Chinese cultural background, establish a research framework of jewelry consumption motivation to Chinese consumers. The paper applies an empirical investigation to them who have the jewelry purchasing experience or intention and employs a variety of statistical methods to finish empirical analysis, and these data analyzing methods include descriptive statistics, reliability and validity, factor analysis, correlation analysis, variance analysis and so on.Throughout the empirical investigation research, this paper obtains several results as follows:(1)Find out ten factors for the jewelry consumption motivation, according to the order of percentage of factor analysis explaining degree,and they are respectively, conspicuous/status factor, praying factor, self-gift factor, self-pleasure factor, sociality factor, bandwagon factor, congruity with internal self factor, quality factor, uniqueness factor and value-added factor, and these ten main components reach the total cumulative value of the 69.591%,which explained most of the information.(2)Conspicuous consumption motivation has no significant difference with status symbol, so synthesizes them as one motivation factor, that is, to conspicuous/status factor, which occupy the highest percentage of explained variance, to 15.643, which is the most important motivation in all of the Chinese jewelry consumption motivation.(3)Praying factor and value-added factor in Chinese consumers' motivations performance significantly. In the past existing luxury studies, it did not conduct a detailed and systematized research to praying factor and value-added factor, and also not conclude them into the major consumption motivation of luxury, but in the influence of Chinese traditional culture, they two have outstanding performance, the percentage of variance explained slightly less than the conspicuous/status symbol factor, to 7.443, is the second largest jewelry consumption motivation of Chinese consumers.(4)The value-added factor through authentication of the factor analysis was included in the framework of Chinese jewelry consumption motivations. Value-added factor includes two dimensions, the speculative and the collection nature, and its percentage of variance explained relatively low, as 3.8, which is due to that mostly buyers of jewelry consumers are ordinary people, and they have jewelry, as a decorative object or emotional appeal, without the purpose of investment and collection.(5)There exist significant correlations among all the jewelry consumption motivations for Chinese consumers. For example, the conspicuous/status symbol motivation has a significant positive correlation with sociality motivation, bandwagon motivation, factor and uniqueness motivation and value-added motivation; self-gift motivation has a significant positive correlation with uniqueness motivation; self pleasure motivation has a significant positive correlation with congruity with internal self motivation and quality motivation; sociality motivation has significantly positive correlation with bandwagon motivation and uniqueness motivation; congruity with internal self motivation has significant positive correlation with quality motivation and uniqueness motivation; quality motivation has significantly positively correlation with uniqueness motivation.(6)Price, brand, and assurance have significant influence to consumption motivation for Chinese consumers. First, price has a significant positive correlation with conspicuous/status symbol motivation, bandwagon motivation and value-added motivation. Second, brand has a significant positive relationship with conspicuous/status symbol motivation, self-gift motivation, sociality motivation, bandwagon motivation, congruity with internal self motivation and value-added motivation. Third, assurance has a significant positive correlation with quality motivation.(7)Demographic variables and jewelry have a significant difference in consumption motivation. Speaking from a gender perspective, male consumers have a more significant motivation than female consumers in to conspicuous/status symbol motivation, sociability motivation, bandwagon motivation and internal self motivation, even female pay more attention to praying motivation. From an age perspective, to various ages people, it exist a significant difference with conspicuous/status symbol motivation, self-gift motivation, self-pleasure motivation, sociality motivation, bandwagon motivation, internal self motivation uniqueness motivation. From a revenue perspective, for people who are in different income levels, it exist a significant difference with conspicuous/status symbol motivation, self-gift motivation, self-pleasure motivation, sociality motivation, bandwagon motivation, internal self motivation uniqueness motivation. From educational attainment, high school diploma and college degree education of consumers pay more attention to prayinger motivation than undergraduate college consumers, however, undergraduate college consumers pay more attention to showing off/status symbol motivation than college students. And in addition, undergraduate college consumers pay more attention to showing off/status symbol motivation than the master's degree consumers. From religious belief perspective, religious belief consumers have a stronger motivation for the blessing; those who have no religious belief pay more attention to self-pleasure. When saying experience, people have buying experience purchase more attention to showing off/status symbol motivation, self-gift motivation, sociability motivation, bandwagon motivation and uniqueness motivation.Finally, according to the researching achievement, paper puts forward several recommendations for the jewelry businesses to implement the marketing strategy in connection with target customers.Firstly, the marketers study the consumption motivation of consumer roundly and systematically by the composition of jewelry consumption motivation. Facing the different jewelry consumers whose motivations focus on different aspects, they should know the purchasing demand of consumers, and then take appropriate marketing mix strategy.Secondly, marketers could conduct the design of the marketing mix from the inner links between motivations of Chinese jewelry consumption motivation.Thirdly, the marketers could implement marketing strategy better by the potential relationship between price, brand, assurance and motivations of Chinese jewelry consumption motivation.Fourthly, according to different demographic variables, jewelry enterprises should take diversified marketing strategy. In the light of consumer psychology and motivation of different consumers, adopt different marketing approach.Fifthly, the jewelry enterprises should integrate China's traditional culture and consumption convention to publicize and promote jewelry product.