Applying several personality traits as indicators for Lebanese consumers' purchase practices towards luxury fashion brands

Abstract

Since the last decade of the 20th century, the market of luxury goods has witnessed a steady growth globally. The brands’ owners are giving greater attention to the phenomenon of luxury consumption. This thesis presents an insight into the determinants of the consumers’ behavior and their purchasing targets and needs towards luxury fashion brands and products, such as Christian Dior, Chanel, Hermes, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Versace, among others, and their relative importance. There are several studies that have tested the consumers’ purchasing behavior, while only few studies surveyed and analyzed the consumers’ behavior towards luxury fashion brands and products. Given that, the personality factors and characteristics were examined with a view to conceptualize the consumers’ behavior towards high-end brands, namely; the ‘self-identity, the need for conspicuousness, the need for status, the need for materialism, the need for acceptance and recognition, and the need for uniqueness and exclusivity’. Furthermore, surveys and interviews were conducted, using face-to-face questions to ascertain the participants’ acquisition habits and feeling toward luxury brands, in order to study and analyze the motivations and barriers of these consumers. The findings showed that the personal factors that have the highest influence on consumers’ behaviors when studying their orientation towards luxury brands were the self-identity and the uniqueness and exclusivity needs. As for the consumers’ motivations and barriers in the same context, findings showed that the quality, price and the existing relation between both of these factors highly influence the consumers’ decisions when it comes to buying related particular luxury brand product or not. The challenge of the brands’ marketers should be to enhance the brand personality, while working more on the uniqueness and exclusivity of the related luxury product or brand. In addition, they should focus their marketing campaigns on the exclusive and unique trait and personality of the targeted brand.