Chinese Market Luxury Consumption Motivation Research

The Chinese luxury market has seen rapid growth during the past years and was estimated by Goldman Sachs Annual Report (2004) to be one of the two biggest luxury markets in 2015, together with Japan. In seeking to understand the luxury consumption motivations in the fastest-growing and culturally unique Chinese market, this study used an inclusive questionnaire based on focus-group studies that were especially designed and motivational measurements used in existing researches that had been empirically proved. Unlike the traditional personal-social dichotomy in explaining luxury consumption, an innovative triple-dimensional motivation framework was developed in this paper from a social dynamic perspective of view. The Superiority, Impact and Product orientations scheme respectively explains the upward and outward mobility, and focus on the product itself in buying luxury pieces, as deep-rooted in Chinese consumers. Inter-group studies based on income, age, gender and education further examined the peculiarities of Chinese luxury consumption on the basis of the social mobility structure behind luxury acquisition. Two typical consumer groups-the "old boy" style and the "aspiring youth"-were identified based on their distinctive and contrasting features. In view of the distinguished characteristics in the Chinese luxury market and especially in the mainstream luxury consumption groups, responding segmentation and positioning strategies for luxury marketers were proposed, and implications for starting e-business, in particular, were discussed.