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Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase: an application

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Article  in  International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management · September 2014

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2014.064696

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316 Int. J. Indian Culture and Business Management, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2014

Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand

purchase: an application of ‘attitude scale to luxury
items’

Shamindra Nath Sanyal*

College of Management,
Institute of Engineering and Management,
D-1, Salt Lake Electronics Complex,
Sector – V, Kolkata – 700091, India
E-mail: sanyalsn@yahoo.co.in
*Corresponding author

Saroj Kumar Datta

VIT Business School,
VIT University,
Vellore – 632014, Tamil Nadu, India
E-mail: dattasaroj@gmail.com

Asok Kumar Banerjee

Institute of Engineering and Management (Ashram Campus),
GN-34/2, Salt Lake Electronics Complex,
Sector – V, Kolkata – 700091, India
E-mail: ban_asok@yahoo.com

Abstract: The objectives are to study consumers’ attitude about luxury goods
with special reference to the Indian consumers and to select the themes
(cognitive, affective and behavioural) from the existing ones from the ‘attitude
scale to luxury items’ suggested by Dubois et al. (2005) for the ‘none available’
item spaces as mentioned in a priori classification of attitudes to luxury using
the C-OAR-SE procedure by Rossiter (2002) and Stegemann et al. (2007).
Consumers’ attitude about luxury goods in Indian perspective has been
examined through an empirical investigation that was carried out among urban
respondents belonging to different social strata in Kolkata Megapolis, West
Bengal, India. We have proposed three hypotheses where separately attitude
and subjective norms toward luxury brands positively affect the intention to use
the goods. Furthermore, intention to use luxury brands does not positively
influence actual usage of the same. Finally through qualitative process, we have
determined the ‘none available’ item spaces as mentioned in a priori
classification of attitudes to luxury. The findings support the hypothesis that
luxury consumption intentions affect actual luxury brand consumption
behaviour. The findings show how nuances occur between measures of
attitudes, subjective norms, and intention.

Keywords: attitude; luxury brands; TRA; subjective norm; intention, India.

Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 317

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Sanyal, S.N., Datta, S.K.
and Banerjee, A.K. (2014) ‘Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand
purchase: an application of ‘attitude scale to luxury items’’, Int. J. Indian
Culture and Business Management, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp.316–339.

Biographical notes: Shamindra Nath Sanyal is an Assistant Professor in

Marketing at the College of Management, Institute of Engineering and
Management, Kolkata, India. Following, his nearly a decade of experience in
pharmaceutical sales and marketing, he moved to the academia. He has
published scholarly articles in national and international management journals
and in the peer-reviewed literatures. His areas of interests are brand
management, consumer behaviour and marketing research.

Saroj Kumar Datta is the Dean at the VIT Business School, VIT University,
Vellore, India. Following his 25 years of experience particularly in the area of
marketing and execution of pollution control projects, he moved to the
academia. His scholarly research papers have been published extensively in
different national and international journals. He has also authored books titled
Marketing Sense and Marketing Management published by Excel Books, New
Delhi and Strategic Management by Jaico Books, New Delhi. His areas of
interests are brand management, consumer behaviour and technology
implication in banking.

Asok Kumar Banerjee is a Senior Professor in Marketing and Strategy at the

Institute of Engineering and Management (Ashram Campus), Salt Lake,
Kolkata, India. Following, his 28 years of experience particularly in FMCG and
liquor industries, he moved to the academia. His scholarly articles have been
published in various national and international journals. His areas of interests
are brand management, strategic marketing and service marketing. He is also
active in consulting work.

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘A study on

attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase through the
application of ‘attitude scale to luxury items’’ presented at the 5th IIMA
Conference on Marketing in Emerging Economies, Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad, 9–11 January 2013.

1 Introduction

Marketing of luxury goods involves a different mindset and strategy. It is a different type
of marketing warfare as the consumers involved in this area have a different perception
and they belong to a different class and different mindscape altogether. Here, the buyers
always stand out of the mass, are more influenced by glamour and style. It is, therefore,
necessary to view the luxury branding from dual perspective-first, the relationship with
the ‘non-luxury’ brands and secondly but most importantly, the strategic differences
between the two. Basically, luxury brands are perceived to be prestige products or
premium products characterised by high-involvement parameters for an effective
decision-making. Consumers like to purchase luxury (‘conspicuous’) goods in order to
satisfy not only material needs but also social needs such as prestige (Amaldoss and Jain,
2005). This decision making process is generally related to the consumer’s self-concept.
The motives for acquiring luxury brands were traditionally regarded as constrainable to
318 S.N. Sanyal et al.

the notion of ‘buying to impress others’, which still more or less serves a strategic
principle for the marketing management of luxury brands (Tsai, 2005). Luxury is
typically consumed for reasons related to impress others, social positioning and status
symbol manifestation (Fionda and Moore, 2009; Truong et al., 2008).
In economics, luxury products are those whose demand rises more than
proportionately with income in contrast to non-luxury goods. Luxury brands are
associated with a high degree of creativity, aesthetic beauty, exclusivity, pricing, quality
and/or a combination of all these. It has been established that aspects related mainly to
quality, craftsmanship, design and aesthetic value are conceived as attributes relative to
luxury goods (Amatulli and Guido, 2011). The luxury product attributes give the
consumers a high degree of need fulfilment, keeping in mind the customer’s social
standing. This is a complex process and we will develop a restructured luxury attitude
scale keeping with the ever-changing market dynamics in luxury market of Indian
business environment. This paper will focus on attitudes of Indian consumers towards
luxury brands and aim to develop the future measurement work along the similar line
proposed by Rossiter (2002) in his C-OAR-SE procedure and Stegemann et al. (2007)
based on the earlier theories of extant measure proposed by Dubois et al. (2005, 2001)
and Vigneron and Johnson (2004).
The basic objectives of this research are to:

1 study consumer’s attitude about luxury goods with special reference to the Indian
consumers and to highlight the reasons those drive the consumers towards the
purchase of luxury goods

2 select the themes (cognitive, affective and behavioural) from the existing ones from
the ‘attitude scale to luxury items’ suggested by Dubois et al. (2005) for the ‘none
available’ item spaces as mentioned in a priori classification of attitudes (attributes)
to luxury (object) based on object classification and attribute classification using the
C-OAR-SE procedure by Rossiter (2002) and Stegemann et al. (2007).

India’s consumer market, earlier defined as a pyramid, where a very small percentage of
affluent class with inclination for consuming luxury products and services stays at the
top, a middle-class with relatively moderate choice for high-end products at the centre
and a large economically challenged class at the lower end, is fast being replaced by a
new diamond shape, where a relatively large affluent class stays at the top, a large middle
class at the centre and a small economically challenged class at the bottom (KS Oils,
2008).
The new generation of affluent Indian consumers is now setting a special trend in
the purchase behaviour of luxury items. They are now tending to show their inclination
towards jewellery, crockery, cars, home furnishing apart from their ‘traditional’ choices
like clothing and couture (Rathore, 2012). Along their choice line, luxury companies
are also adjusting their product lines in India. The reason for this shift may be with
more disposable income and availability of adequate information and Indian consumers
want more of such options than just clothing or handbags. Bain & Company, a
management consultant firm, recently showed through their global report that
luxury market in India is estimated to be around 1.2 billion euros in 2012 (Rathore,
2012), although, in comparison with the other countries, India is still at a nascent stage in
luxury brands consumption.
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 319

2 Defining luxury brands

Luxury has never been something easy to define, yet this mystery concept is something
highly desired by one and all alike (Mansharamani and Khanna, 2007). According to
Graham and Matthews (2004), “--- the way in which individual and collective dreams
and aspirations are made real--- is a moving target. And in a marketplace dominated by
more rapid change than ever before, what creates that sense of ‘specialness’…”. The term
‘luxury’ is generally used in our daily life to refer to products and services or a special
lifestyle. The luxury concept still is not very clear, as ambiguity in the perception of
luxury is very common. According to Kapferer (1997), “…“luxury” defines beauty; it is
art applied to functional items…luxury items provide extra pleasure and flatter all senses
at once…”
Nueno and Quelch (1998) defined luxury brands as “those whose ratio of functional
utility to price is low while the ratio of intangible and situational utility to price is high”.
In today’s world, luxury is being defined as an expression of attitude, which is
generated through the high level of unique and personal sophistication. Usage of luxury
goods, nowadays, does not only fulfil the self-esteem needs, but also highlights the
greater personal aspirations. Consumers select products based not only on the tangible
value of the products, but also their desire to experience the brand image, express it and
satisfy themselves (Lassar et al., 1995). Luxury products are the glaring example of such
products.
Dubois and Paternault (1995) discussed the ‘rarity principle’, i.e., the prestige of the
brand is decreased if too many people own it (Dubois and Paternault, 1995). Therefore,
luxury brands organisations have to maintain a ‘fragile equilibrium’ between high
exposure and awareness but a controlled level of sales (Riley and Lacroix, 2003).

3 Literature review

There are quite a number of empirical papers published on luxury and remarkable studies
have been done on luxury branding.
In consumer behaviour research, a growing amount of attention has been given to the
construct of luxury. Researchers have focused on how the luxury of a brand enables a
consumer to express his or her own self, an ideal-self, or specific dimensions of the self
through the use of a brand (Lichtenstein et al., 1993).
Most often, researchers point to a few objective attributes, such as quality and price,
as primary associations with luxury (Kapferer, 1998). The symbolic meaning of luxury
remains elusive since authors rely on somewhat abstract characteristics such as ‘dream
value’ (Dubois and Paternault, 1995) or ‘superfluousness’ (Bearden and Etzel, 1982).
In a very recent study, Husic and Cicic (2009) have concluded that factors of luxury
consumption can be well grouped into four categories, i.e., brand image and quality,
fashion, store atmosphere and patron status.
Many authors have shown that consumers often used the price parameter as a tool for
judging quality when distinguishing between different brands (Erickson and Johansson,
1985; Tellis and Gaeth, 1990). In practice, a higher price would suggest a higher level of
quality (Vigneron and Johnson 1999). In addition, researchers have also suggested that
consumers who perceived price as an alternative for quality, also perceived high prices as
a positive indicator suggesting a certain degree of prestige (Lichtenstein et al., 1993).
320 S.N. Sanyal et al.

Luxury-seeking customers may purchase and consume luxury brands for their
‘subjective emotional benefits’ and ‘intrinsically pleasing properties’, rather than
functional properties (Vigneron and Johnson, 1999).
Existing research demonstrates that behaviour varies between different people
depending on their susceptibility to interpersonal influence (Bushman, 1993; Pantzalis,
1995). However, it is not sufficient to explain the total frame of consumption in the
luxury market with socially oriented consumers’ motives by following a broader
perspective in exploring the customer’s perception for purchasing luxury goods
(Vigneron and Johnson, 1999, 2004; Gentry et al., 2001). In their study, Atwal and
Williams (2009) discussed the basic difference between communication and connection
of luxury brands, and identified a way of assuring the sustainable success for luxury
marketers by connecting with the luxury consumers using brand-related experiences.
In addition to the socially oriented luxury brand consumption and the human desire to
impress others, a personally oriented type of consumption needs to be considered in the
management of luxury brands. It is expected that different sets of consumers would have
different perceptions of the luxury value. As a result, the overall luxury value of a brand
would sum up these perceptions from different perspectives. Thus, to explain consumers’
behaviour in relation to luxury brands apart from interpersonal aspects like snobbery and
conspicuousness (Mason, 1992) personal aspects such as hedonist and perfectionist
motives (Dubois and Laurent, 1994) as well as situational conditions (e.g., economic,
societal, and political factors) have to be taken into consideration (Vigneron and Johnson,
1999, 2004). Luxury consumption can be an encouraging social strategy because
conspicuous demonstrations of luxury may be qualified as a rich signalling trait that
shows favourable behaviour by status-oriented people in social interactions (Nelissen and
Meijers, 2011).
Previous studies found that there was strong variation in consumer attitudes towards
the idea of luxury and luxury brands (Dubois and Laurent, 1994; Dubois et al., 2001).
While a few of them express nonchalance, most of the individuals at the same time
display strong positive and negative emotions to the concept of luxury. Since wealthy
consumers consider luxury as part of their life, they generally give positive feedback to
luxury. On the other hand, individuals who are less acquainted with luxury seem to be
more critical (Dubois et al., 2001). Individuals face dilemma about the purchase of luxury
and have mixed feeling towards luxury brands. A mixed set of spontaneous opinions such
as upscale, pleasant, quality, good taste, class, as well as flashiness, uselessness and bad
taste has been conveyed by the consumers regarding their attitude to the idea of luxury.
Negative opinions are based on the perception that individuals purchase luxury goods to
differentiate them from the mass and to copy the affluent ones (Dubois et al., 2001). In
many a times, aspirations can influence luxury brand preference depending on the type of
aspirations; positive for extrinsic aspirations and negative for intrinsic ones and also,
intrinsic aspirations play more vital role in luxury consumer behaviour (Truong et al.,
2010). The global market for luxury brands has witnessed a substantial growth over the
last two decades but with the increase in customers’ perception to gather sufficient value
in their luxury brands to compensate for the high prices, it becomes essential for the
luxury brand owners to provide the value-for-money advantage to the customers in the
current hyper-competitive business environment (Tynan et al., 2010). Their study
highlighted that a variety of interactions taking place between luxury brand companies,
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 321

their customers and members of their respective networks. These interactions help the
brand owners to differentiate luxury brands and co-create a superior value proposition
(Tynan et al., 2010).
Overall, most people expressed positive attitudes towards the concept of luxury while
admitting their relative lack of expertise and familiarity with purchasing luxury brands.
Individuals’ avoidance and attraction reactions to luxury further emphasise the dual
nature of the concept.
Some authors have synthesised cognitive and affective dimensions and led to a wide
understanding of the conditions and drivers of luxury product perception and to a
broadened view of luxury value which lies in social, individual, functional, and financial
aspects (Wiedmann et al., 2007).
The attitude scale was originally developed by Dubois and Laurent (1994)
and extensively reported by Dubois et al. (2005, 2001). The scale consists of
34 items, out of which 33 were classified as cognitive, affective and behaviour-related
themes with a single item added later. A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the
items.
Stegemann et al. (2007) reviewed the validity of the measure originally developed by
Dubois and Laurent (1994). They have also checked the reliability of the scale by using a
small study (n = 139) of Australian business students. They have proposed a complete
revision of the measure of the said scale by following Rossiter’s (2002)
scale development method C-OAR-SE. They have prepared a very comprehensive
object-classification and attribute-classification related table that gives a new direction
for further studies by using Rossiter’s (2002) approach.
The existing literatures are mainly concerned with the consumer behaviour and
marketing strategy of luxury brands in the so called western countries and authors’
studies are based on the demographic and psychographic orientations of the consumers in
that socio-cultural perspectives. Therefore, they have got a little connection with the
socio-cultural aspects of India.
But there has been much less luxury literature available related to India. Therefore, it
is somewhat difficult to arrive at any decisional process regarding analysing the
consumer behaviour in luxury market segment.
A profusion of luxury brands have been observed into the Indian market. It starts
from stand-alone stores in five star hotels to luxury malls, that were previously only seen
in international fashion magazines and high streets abroad, were now familiar names in
India (Kapoor, 2010). With a high rate of rising of disposable income, the rising Indian
luxury consumer is being entreated by the luxury brand marketers with high expectations
among the emerging markets.
In terms of demand and aspirations category, Indian consumers are showing a high
degree of heterogeneity. So, while disposable incomes are ascending and lifestyles are
changing fast across India, some specific locations of the country show more promising
qualifications than others in relation to the acceptance for luxury brands. The metros are
certainly in the top positions, but broadly, the western region of the country is fast
maturing with more demand for luxury brands (Vahalia, 2007). Appealing to the rising
affluence of Indian consumers, high-end luxury consumer goods are being appeared in
Bollywood movies (Kripalani, 2007).
322 S.N. Sanyal et al.

In absence of detailed research works on the attitude of Indian consumers towards

likings of luxury brands, the current research work, incorporating necessary theoretical
frame works and empirical findings, aims to investigate the attitude of Indian consumers
towards luxury-brand purchase.

3.1 Customer’s attitude and concept of luxury

Attitudes are not innate; they are learned and therefore can be created or changed through
marketing communication strategies (Westberg, 2004). In influencing consumer
behaviour, attitude plays a very crucial role. Brand attitude can form the basis for
consumer behaviour and is determined by the importance and relevance of brand’s
attributes and benefits (Keller, 1993). Therefore, marketers should engage in those
activities that are necessary for creating favourable attitudes towards brands. To generate
a positive attitude towards a brand, the consumer must believe that the brand has
the attributes and benefits that will satisfy his or her wants or needs (Keller, 1993).
The phenomenon of customer’s experience of both positive and negative emotions
simultaneously is usually called consumer ambivalence (Otnes et al., 1997). Otnes et al.
(1997) showed that due to ambivalent character of consumers, they could not locate
their own contradictions and therefore, their attitude-related perspectives remained
inconsistent. In their study, Gil et al. (2012) demonstrated that materialistic orientation
was a powerful force in developing positive attitudes toward luxury brands. Considering
a different market segment altogether, they also noted that teenagers who had clear versus
dim self-beliefs had a strong tendency to resist social influence to consume luxury
brands. It signified that more the teenagers were clearer about themselves the less they
paid attention to external stimuli (Gil et al., 2012).
As mentioned earlier, the attitude scale was originally developed by Dubois and
Laurent (1994) and extensively reported by Dubois et al. (2005, 2001). The scale consists
of 34 items, out of which 33 were classified as cognitive, affective and behaviour-related
themes with a single item added later (Table 1). The items were measured by using a
five-point Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree). The initial scale development
proceeded using a sample of 440 consumers in a French language instrument (Dubois and
Laurent, 1994).
Vigneron and Johnson (2004) have broadly defined five values of prestige
components and two specific components for the attitude concept in luxury: three-factor
structure based on interpersonal effects (conspicuousness, uniqueness and quality) and a
two-factor structure based on personal effects (hedonism and extended-self). Following
C-OAR-SE procedure that advises that scales are formed by considering the objective
and attribute classification, the object classification of Stegemann et al. (2007) includes
the five values of prestige components of Vigneron and Johnson (2004). Since
components of luxury are measured by cognitive, affective and behavioural parts,
Stegemann et al. (2007) have classified the attribute parts accordingly and at least, there
must be one cognitive, affective and behavioural item for each classified object part.
They have also added another attribute classification part called ‘ambiguous’, i.e., where
the existing items as proposed by Dubois et al. (2005, 2001) have ambiguity in nature.
These ambiguous items have clearly been mentioned by them (Table 4).
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 323

Table 1 Attitude scale to luxury items

Knowledge-related themes
I do not know much about luxury world.
I general, luxury products are better quality products.
A fine replica of a luxury brand is just as good.
Luxury products inevitably are very expensive.
In my opinion, luxury is too expensive for what it is.
Few people own a truly luxury product.
Truly luxury goods cannot be mass produced.
A luxury product cannot be sold in supermarkets.
A real luxury brand does not advertise its products.
In my opinion, luxury is present.
Some education is needed for appreciating luxury products.
I my opinion, luxury is really useless.
A product must be somewhat useless to be a luxury product.
In my opinion, luxury is old fashioned.
In my opinion, luxury is flashy.
In my opinion, luxury is good taste.
Affect-related themes
All things considered, I rather like luxury.
I am not interested in luxury.
Luxury makes me dream.
Luxury products make life more beautiful.
I could talk about luxury for hours.
I would not feel at ease in a luxury shop.
When I wear a luxury item, I feel a bit like I’m disguising myself
Behaviour-related themes
I almost never buy luxury products.
One buys luxury goods primarily for one’s pleasure.
For the most part, luxury goods are to be offered as gifts.
One needs to be a bit of a snob to buy luxury products.
The luxury products we buy reveal a little bit of who we are.
Today, everyone should have access to luxury goods.
People who buy those products seek to imitate the rich.
People who buy those products try to differentiate themselves from others.
Those who buy luxury brands are refined people.
Luxury brands should be taxed more heavily.
Source: Adapted from Dubois et al. (2005)
324 S.N. Sanyal et al.

3.2 Attitude toward luxury brands

An attitude represents an ‘evaluative integration’ of cognitive and affective parts
experienced in relation to an object and attitudes are the evaluative judgements that
integrate these cognitive and affective reactions (Crano and Prislin, 2006). Previous
theories predicting practice behaviour hypothesise that attitudes influence behaviour
(Bandura, 1977; Bagozzi et al., 1989). Apart from cognitive and affective component, the
third attitude component, the behavioural dimension is known to be the consumers’
tendency to act towards an object and is generally measured by the term ‘intention to
purchase’ (Assael, 1998).
Since the Indian consumers are changing and they want best quality, best service and
are ready to make a wide range of experiments, it is evident with luxury brands making a
regular appearance in the Indian market and being lapped up with passion. We, therefore,
can hypothesise that Indian consumers have the attitude to purchase luxury articles that
finally results into the intention to purchase.
H1 Attitude toward luxury brands positively affects the intention to use the goods.

3.3 Subjective norms

Several past studies have found that subjective norm has a positive significant effect on
purchase intention (Shim and Drake, 1990; Chang, 1998; Nysveen et al., 2005;
Tarkiainen and Sundqvist, 2005; Lin, 2008; Laohapensang, 2009). Chang (1998)
examined the correlation between subjective norms and attitudes towards behaviour more
thoroughly, and tested the causal link from norms to attitudes. In the research of Shim
and Drake (1990), it was found that attitudinal component and normative belief were
similarly important in predicting electronic shopping intention without the function of
motivation to comply. The path from subjective norms to attitudes towards behaviour
was significant in Chang’s (1998) study. He suggested that the relationship could be
explained with influence of social environment on an individual’s attitude formation.
Despite the primary importance of attitudes in predicting intentions to perform
behaviours, subjective norms are held responsible for a small, but significant, proportion
of variance in intentions (Trafimow and Finlay, 2001). Trafimow and Finlay (1996)
explored two possible reasons for the findings. One possibility is that subjective norms
might be of only slight importance for most behaviours. In other words, although a few
behaviours are primarily under normative control, most of them are primarily under
attitudinal control. Second, there might be individual differences in the degree to which
people are under attitudinal versus normative control across a wide range of behaviours.
If a small number of people are generally under normative control, then the inclusion of
these people in most participant samples could explain the small, but significant,
normative effects that are generally reported in the literature.
Vigneron and Johnson (1999, 2004), Parker et al. (2004), Tsai (2005) and Wiedmann
et al. (2009) empirically supported the impact of social influence on consumers’ luxury
brand purchase. According to Tsai (2005), consumers with better social orientation are
motivated to purchase luxury brands in order to display their status and success to social
groups they belong.
Based on the above discussions, the following hypothesis is proposed.
H2 Subjective norm positively affects the intention to use luxury brands.
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 325

3.4 Actual purchase

Studies have supported the notion that behavioural intentions are found to have a positive
effect on behaviour (Bush et al., 2004; Nysveen et al., 2005; Jayasingh and Eze, 2009).
Finally, given a sufficient degree of actual control over the behaviour, people are
expected to carry out their ‘intentions’ when the opportunity arises. ‘Intention’ is thus
assumed to be the immediate antecedent of behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). In summary,
attitude toward the behaviour, social norm, and perception of behavioural control lead to
the formation of a behavioural intention.
Previous researches indicate that attitudes formed on the basis of direct experience are
easier to bring to mind which in turn enhances impact on behaviour and direct
experience-based attitudes exert stronger impact on behaviour than that of the indirect
ones (Baron and Byrne, 2006). This statement reinforces the concept that customers with
substantial experience in luxury brand purchase and usage give better opinion in terms of
their purchase intention of luxury goods.
Based on the above arguments, the following hypothesis is presented:
H3 Intention to use luxury brands positively influences actual usage of luxury brands
Therefore, the research model can be represented as:

Figure 1 Research model

4 Research methodology

We have used a pilot survey to test the applicability of these 33 (including cognitive,
affective and behaviour-related themes) items in measuring the attitude of Indian
consumers towards luxury brands. We have included 50 respondents in this pilot-group
survey and requested to them to give away their views about these 33 items. Our
objective was to judge that how far this survey instrument was applicable to the Indian
consumers to explain their attitude towards luxury items and whether new items can be
found out that provide adequate coverage in Stegemann et al. (2007) work. Finally, we
have selected 14 items that have been chosen by maximum (~72%) number of
respondents and set our research instrument based on the results of the pilot survey
(Table 2). We have categorically discarded the items which are not supported by the pilot
group.
326 S.N. Sanyal et al.

Table 2 Items selected by the pilot group

No. Items
1 I am not interested in luxury
2 I do not know much about luxury world.
3 Some education is needed for appreciating luxury products.
4 I would not feel at ease at luxury shops
5 Luxury products inevitably are very expensive
6 Truly luxury goods cannot be mass produced.
7 One buys luxury goods primarily for one’s pleasure
8 People who buy those products seek to imitate the rich
9 Luxury products make life more beautiful.
10 People who buy those products try to differentiate themselves from others
11 One needs to be a bit of snob to buy luxury products
12 In general, luxury products are better quality products
13 The luxury products we buy reveal a little bit of who we are
14 Those who buy luxury brands are refined people

To derive the expected result, we base our calculation on Fishbein and Ajzen’s theory of
reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) model which states that behaviour is a direct
result of intention (Lindquist and Sirgy, 2003) which is illustrated below asserts that
one’s intentions influence overt behaviour. This theory is applicable to planned as well as
impulse purchase. Formally,
B ≈ BI
where
B the person’s actual behaviour, approximately equal to BI
BI his intention to behave in a particular manner.
We can express BI as follows (Loudon and Della Bitta, 2002):
BI = w1 ( AB ) + w2 (SN )

where
AB the person’s attitude toward performing the particular behaviour
SN the subjective norm regarding that behaviour
w1 and w2 weights representing the relative influence of AB and SN respectively on the
behavioural intentions (Loudon and Della Bitta, 2002).
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 327

To achieve the objectives of survey, a structured questionnaire was designed to collect

primary data from respondents. The questionnaire consists of four sets of seven-point
Likert scale which are as follows:
1 For individual attitude component (AB), to measure the person’s belief (bi) we
constructed a seven-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly
agree’(–3 to +3) option. Instead of putting the option ‘do not know’, we have used
‘cannot say’. This questionnaire consisted of 14 statements derived from the pilot
group’s choice.
2 To measure the person’s evaluation of consequence i (ei), we constructed a
seven-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly negative’ to ‘strongly positive’
(–3 to +3) option. In this case too, we have used the category ‘cannot say’.
3 For subjective norm component (SN), to measure the person’s normative belief (bj)
that a person j thinks he should or should not perform the particular behaviour, we
constructed a seven-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disapprove’ to
‘strongly approve’ (–3 to +3) option. In this case too, we have used the option
‘cannot say’.
4 For subjective norm component (SN), to measure the person’s motivation (mj) to
comply with the thoughts of referent j, we constructed a seven-point Likert scale
ranging from ‘strongly de-motivated’ to ‘strongly motivated’ (–3 to +3) option. In
this case too, we have used the option ‘cannot say’.
The samples in this research were restricted to adults of age 22+ and employed. To
choose the sample for this study, two-stage probability sampling technique was used. At
the second stage, cluster sampling was used, where groups of heterogeneous members of
the population were chosen. To choose the sample for this particular study, at the first
stage, simple random sampling technique was used, where the respondents were
approached in their workplaces. The respective organisations were randomly selected
from a portal www.kolkatainformation.com. The samples were then drawn from the
selected organisations from the employee lists to make the clusters. Total sample selected
was 200 out of which two respondents denied giving data. Therefore, the effective
sample size became 198.

4.1 Sample description

The demographic part of the questionnaire asked the respondents to record their gender,
education, monthly household income (MHI), age and job position. The samples were
selected through cluster sampling method, where the whole elements in the representative
organisations were randomly selected. The details of the demographic profile of
respondents are given below (Table 3).
Our basic purpose is to find out as much items as possible from the existing ones
derived by the pilot group from the luxury items suggested by Dubois et al. (2005) for the
‘none available’ item spaces as mentioned by Stegemann et al. (2007) in Table 4.
328 S.N. Sanyal et al.

Table 3 Demographic profile of respondents

Demographic
Description No. of respondents Percentage
profiles
Gender Male 87 43.93
Female 111 56.06
Education Diploma - -
Bachelor’s degree 12 6.06
Post-graduate diploma/degree 142 71.72
Doctorate 36 18.19
Others 8 4.04
Monthly Below 40,000 22 11.11
household
40,000–50,000 45 22.72
income (INR)
50,000–60,000 28 14.14
60,000–70,000 50 25.26
70,000–80, 00 30 15.16
Above 80,000 23 11.62
Age 22–26 years 10 5.05
26–30 years 38 19.20
30–34 years 49 24.75
34–38 years 26 13.13
38–42 years 62 31.31
42 and above 13 6.57
Job position Non-executive 8 4.04
Lower management 21 10.61
Middle management 68 34.34
Top management 7 3.54
Professional 19 9.60
Teaching and consultancy 58 29.30
Self-employed 17 8.59

Table 4 A priori classification of attitudes (attributes) to luxury (object) using the C-OAR-SE
procedure

Object classification Attribute classification Existing items

Personal – self-extension Affective All things considered, I rather like
luxury.
Cognitive I do not know much about the
luxury world.
Behavioural None available
Source: Adapted from Stegemann et al. (2007) and Rossiter (2002)
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 329

Table 4 A priori classification of attitudes (attributes) to luxury (object) using the C-OAR-SE
procedure (continued)

Object classification Attribute classification Existing items

Personal – Hedonism Ambiguous • Luxury makes me dream.
• I am not interested in luxury.
Affective None available
Cognitive None available
Non-personal – Quality Behavioural I could talk about luxury for hours.
Ambiguous • In my opinion luxury is
pleasant.
• In my opinion, luxury is good
taste.
Affective None available
Cognitive None available
Non-personal – Uniqueness Behavioural None available
Ambiguous --
Affective None available
Cognitive Few people own a truly luxury
product.
Non-personal – Conspicuousness Behavioural None available
Ambiguous • In my opinion, luxury is too
expensive for what it is.
• In my opinion, luxury is really
useless.
• In my opinion, luxury is old
fashioned.
• In my opinion, luxury is flashy.
Source: Adapted from Stegemann et al. (2007) and Rossiter (2002)

5 Major results

A principal component analysis with varimax rotation was performed. Inspection of

the correlation matrix showed that all coefficients are more than 0.3. The
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value is 0.652, which is higher than the recommended minimum of
0.6 (Kaiser, 1974), although this value belongs to a mediocre category. These data
interpret that there is relative compactness of correlation in the data matrix. These data
also clarify that factor analysis is highly appropriate for these data (Table 5).
Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (0.000), supporting the factorability of the
correlation matrix. As shown in Table 6, all items loaded as expected on their respective
330 S.N. Sanyal et al.

factor. The items were also subjected to the reliability test. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha
(α) was used to measure the internal consistency of the items. As shown in Table 5, all α
values were above 0.7 and thus all items provided a relatively high level of internal
consistency.

Table 5 KMO and Bartlett’s test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.652

Bartlett’s test of sphericity Approx. chi-square 281.896
df 91
Sig. .000

Variables those had similar factor loadings for two or more factors and factor loading less
than 0.40 were deleted from study. V6, V4, V1 and V5 were dropped from calculation.
Initial percentage of variance explained by 14 items was 52.19% and after dropping four
variables it came to 55.982%. Though the change is not very significant, it shows some
positive direction in the calculation itself. Out of the four dropped variables, three
belonged to knowledge-related themes and one belonged to affect-related themes in the
‘attitude scale to luxury items’ (Dubois et al., 2005) (Table 1). Interestingly enough, no
variable has been dropped from behaviour-related themes. The items were also subjected
to the reliability test. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha (α) was used to measure the internal
consistency of the items.

Table 6 Rotated component matrix

Component
F1 F2 F3 F4
V7 (I am not interested in luxury) .799
V8 (I would not feel at ease at luxury shops) .663
V3 (Luxury products inevitably are very expensive) .703
V9 (One buys luxury goods primarily for one’s pleasure) .641
V12 (People who buy those products seek to imitate the rich) .474
V13 (People who buy those products try to differentiate .454
themselves from others)
V10 (One needs to be a bit of snob to buy luxury products) .765
V2 (In general, luxury products are better quality products) .750
V11 (The luxury products we buy reveal a little bit of who we .821
are)
V14 (Those who buy luxury brands are refined people) .486
Percentage of total variance explained 17.315 14.695 12.631 11.341
Cronbach’s alpha .748 .732 .719 .702
Notes: Only loading > 0.4 are shown. Extraction method: principal component analysis.
Rotation method: varimax with Kaiser normalisation, a rotation converged in
seven iterations.
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 331

Table 7(a) Regression results

Multiple R = 0.561
R-square = 0.315
Adjusted R-square = 0.308
Standard error = 0.21976
Sum of Mean
Model df F Sig.
squares square
Regression .155 2 0.07756 1.606 0.0267
Residual .338 7 0.04830
Total .493 9

Tolerance
Variable Std. error Beta t Sig. VIF
value
Attitude .252 0.311 2.980 0.027 1.032 0.969
Subjective norm .261 0.524 5.469 0.0143 1.032 0.969
Notes: a Predictors: (constant), F2, F1.
b Dependent variable: F3.
Table 7(b) Regression results

Multiple R = 0.140
R-square = 0.020
Adjusted R-square = 0.103
Standard error = 0.30830
Sum of Mean
Model df F Sig.
squares square
Regression 0.015180 1 0.015172 0.160 0.700
Residual 0.760 8 0.09505
Total 0.776 9

Tolerance
Variable Std. error Beta t Sig. VIF
value
Customers’ .439 –0.140 –0.400 0.700 1.000 1.000
intention
Notes: a Predictors: (constant), F3
b Dependent variable: F4.
Four factors extracted from factor analysis are shown in Table 5. We have given the
nomenclatures of the factors along the similar line to the Object Classifications given by
Rossiter (2002) in his “A priori classification of attitudes (attributes) to luxury (object)
using the C-OAR-SE procedure” (Table 4). Since we have extracted only four factors and
there is no similarity of any of our ten variables with the 5th object classification of
Rossiter (2002), i.e., ‘Non-personal conspicuousness’, we have dropped that factor from
our list and taken the first four from Rossiter (2002) list. Our factors in this study are F1
(attitude), F2 (subjective norm), F3 (intention) and F4 (actual usage).
The percent of variation explained by F1 (attitude), F2 (subjective norm), F3
(intention) and F4 (actual usage) factors are 17.315, 14.695, 12.631 and 11.341%
332 S.N. Sanyal et al.

respectively. The narrated four factors could explain the variance in attitude of Indian
consumers towards luxury brands to 55.98%.
Having confirmed the construct validity and the instrument reliability, we ran
multiple regression analysis in order to find out the effect of the factors identified on the
overall attitude of customers with luxury brands and actual usage. Table 7(a) and
Table 7(b) summarise the regression results. Table 7(a) shows the effect of attitude
towards luxury brands and subjective norms on the customers’ intention to purchase
luxury brands, whereas, Table 7(b) depicts the influence of customers’ intention to
purchase luxury brands on actual usage of luxury brands
The regression results in Table 7a showed that the attitude (β = 0.311) and subjective
norm (β = 0.524) effect on behavioural intention is statistically significant, thus supported
both H1 and H2 in this study. Subjective norm effect on the intention is higher as
compared to the attitude on intention as indicated in its larger standardised beta
coefficient.
Again the data of Table 7b showed that the intention (β = –0.140) indicates that the
two factors are negatively correlated. This implies that intention does not always have a
positive influence on actual usage of luxury brands. This conclusion seems significant as
intention to purchase does not necessarily result in purchase of luxury brands. Again for
intention factor, p = .700, which is more than .05 and therefore, this factor does not
contribute in explaining actual usage of luxury brands. This analysis does not support our
H3. Therefore, we have discarded H3.
As a reason of our conclusion that intention to purchase does not necessarily result in
purchase of luxury brands, we can mention that while Indian consumers talk about
uniqueness, exclusivity and appeal to personal taste, the majority of market is still far
away from this perception and the brand/logo value highly influences luxury usage. The
mindset of Indian consumers is still that of an ‘aspirer’ rather than ‘connoisseur’
(Kearney, 2010). While the average Indian luxury consumers value high quality,
exclusivity and social appeal as key influencers leading to luxury purchase, they are also
very price conscious and often bestrode in a ‘plain living-high thinking’ mindset.
A recent report by Technopak – The Knowledge Company analysed that there are
over 8 to 9 million consumers in India who can afford luxury brands but do not purchase
them as they cannot relate to them.
The important factors identified by the factor analysis are Attitude, Subjective Norm,
Intention and Actual Usage. There is significant impact of Attitude and Subjective Norm
on customers’ intention to purchase luxury items. Out of these two factors, maximum
contribution is made by subjective norm.
We mean to say that the result is really unique, for this result has proved that in
Indian market environment, customers give more importance to subjective norms rather
than their own attitude while having intention to purchase luxury items. This result
supports previous literatures. Since Indian culture is more or less a collectivistic culture,
overall, Asian (Indian) collectivist consumers engage in less impulsive buying than
western individualist consumers, despite the highly developed shopping culture in Asia.
Moreover, there is a weaker correlation between self-reported trait buying impulsiveness
and the frequency of impulsive buying behaviour for collectivists compared to
individualists (Kacen and Lee, 2002). This finding supports and extends previous
research that has found that customers belong to collectivistic culture are able to maintain
inconsistent attitude-behaviour relationships (Kashima et al., 1992) and to put their own
feelings aside in order to act in an appropriate manner (Triandis, 1995). Although
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 333

collectivists possess the buying impulsiveness trait in equal measure with individualists,
they suppress this trait impulse and act in a manner that is consistent with cultural norms
(Kacen and Lee, 2002), in this case giving extra importance to subjective norms, i.e., the
individual customer’s perception of how others who are important to them will react to
such a behaviour, rather than giving emphasis to his/her own attitude towards the luxury
brands.
Thus far we have seen that the factor F2 (subjective norm) has the maximum impact
upon the intention to buy luxury items and this factor consists of four variables viz. V3
(luxury products inevitably are very expensive), V9 (One buys luxury goods primarily for
one’s pleasure), V12 (people who buy those products seek to imitate the rich) and V13
(people who buy those products try to differentiate themselves from others). We can
consider these variables as the possible necessary items to put into the empty spaces in
the a priori classification of attitudes (attributes) to luxury (object) using the C-OAR-SE
procedure (Rossiter, 2002). The classification can be done qualitatively on the basis of
the following:
“Luxury products inevitably are very expensive”, the current researchers have put this
variable under non-personal-quality object and as a behavioural item. Since luxury brands
are often directly associated with those who always try to preserve the essence of upper
classes and prefer expensive and exotic luxury goods to mark social status, the
consumption of luxury goods are generally used by them as to express social status. This
pattern of purchase of such items is particularly true for luxury goods, because:
a they are expensive
b people who buy one luxury good tend to go for repeat purchase.
The term ‘inevitably’ has made it to be selected in this way. Had this sentence been
constructed without this word, we would have considered it as cognitive and not
behavioural. Secondly, since there is a highly correlated relationship between price and
quality that are at primary associations with luxury (Kapferer, 1998), it is valid to put this
statement into non-personal-quality object, although the variable is associated with price.
“One buys luxury goods primarily for one’s pleasure”, this item has been defined as
behavioural item under non-personal – uniqueness basically because of the term
‘primarily’ which shows that the basis is behavioural and not cognitive or affective.
Moreover, the fundamental proposition of Mehrabian and Russell’s theory is that the
impact of the situation on behaviour is mediated by emotional responses, so that any set
of conditions initially generates an emotional reaction, which in turn leads to a
behavioural response. Further, the universe of all possible emotional responses may be
represented by one or a combination of three basic dimensions: pleasure, arousal and
dominance (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974; retrieved from Lutz and Kakkar, 1975).
Customers who perceive luxury brands as exclusive and premium quality ones with a
high emotional value are more materialistic and more prestige seeking than individuals
with different perception about luxury. Possessions of luxury brands have a prominent
place in the minds of this segment and they believe that possessions indicate success and
self-esteem that lead to happiness more than the individuals who do not believe in the
concept that one buys luxury for his/her pleasure. The believers in luxury possession
perceive that such possessions are the road to pleasure and indicate success. They are also
more sensitive to prestige than the non-believer segment. Therefore, based on these
phenomena, the variable has been set into the column specified.
334 S.N. Sanyal et al.

Among the four variables both V12 (people who buy those products seek to imitate
the rich) and V13 (people who buy those products try to differentiate themselves from
others) are highly ambiguous statements. In our opinion, V13 is more ambiguous that
V12 and its high degree of ambiguity make it difficult to put it under any attribute
classification. The term ‘differentiates’ in V13 is one which does not show any particular
scale based on which we can put it in the table. Therefore, we have dropped that variable
and selected three variables for this a priori classification table for behavioural intention
to purchase luxury brands in the market called India. The introduction of new items into
Rossiter’s (2002) a priori classification of attitudes (attributes) to luxury (object) using
the C-OAR-SE procedure is mentioned in Table 8.
Table 8 Introduction of new items into Rossiter’s (2002) a priori classification of attitudes
(attributes) to luxury (object) using the C-OAR-SE procedure

New items (as per

Attribute
Object classification Existing items the analysis of the
classification
current study)
Personal – Self-extension Affective All things considered, I
rather like luxury.
Cognitive I do not know much
about the luxury world.
Behavioural None available
Personal – Hedonism Ambiguous • Luxury makes me
dream.
• I am not interested in
luxury.
Affective None available
Cognitive None available
Non-personal – Quality Behavioural I could talk about luxury Luxury products
for hours. inevitably are very
expensive
Ambiguous • In my opinion luxury
is pleasant.
• In my opinion,
luxury is good taste.
Affective None available
Cognitive None available
Non-personal – Uniqueness Behavioural None available One buys luxury
goods primarily
for one’s pleasure
Ambiguous -- People who buy
those products
seek to imitate the
rich
Affective None available
Cognitive Few people own a truly
luxury product.
 Attitude of Indian consumers towards luxury brand purchase 335

Table 8 Introduction of new items into Rossiter’s (2002) a priori classification of attitudes
(attributes) to luxury (object) using the C-OAR-SE procedure (continued)

New items (as per

Attribute
Object classification Existing items the analysis of the
classification
current study)
Non-personal – Conspicuousness Behavioural None available
Ambiguous • In my opinion,
luxury is too
expensive for what it
is.
• In my opinion,
luxury is really
useless.
• In my opinion,
luxury is old
fashioned.
• In my opinion,
luxury is flashy.

6 Implications and conclusions

The current study was done in Kolkata megapolis area within the state of West Bengal,
India by using a questionnaire to a sample of randomly selected working adults. It
focused on the luxury brand consumption attitude of the Indian consumers. We have
argued that in Indian market environment, customers give more importance to subjective
norms rather than their own attitude while having intention to purchase luxury items.
The present research provides some fresh insights into the well-researched luxury
branding area by restructuring the attitude scale first conceptualised by Dubois and
Laurent (1994) through generalising the theory of reasoned action model. The results of
this study have several practical implications. A significant positive relationship between
attitude and behavioural intention suggests that positive attitude about luxury brands
could influence individuals to have the intention to purchase luxury items.
Stegemann et al. (2007) argued that to understand consumer responses to luxury
brands, measurement of an individual’s attitude to luxury is a useful tool for marketers,
but it has been manifested that the present measurement scale of consumers attitudes to
luxury is not sufficient (Stegemann et al., 2007), although adequate measures of brand
luxury exist [i.e., the brand luxury index of Vigneron and Johnson (2004)]. Consistent
with findings in the research lines proposed by Rossiter (2002) in his C-OAR-SE
procedure and further analysis done by Stegemann et al. (2007), the current research has
extended that concept to the extent to add new items into the a priori classification of
attitudes (attributes) to luxury (object) using the C-OAR-SE procedure (Rossiter, 2002).
This is, the authors believe, a new direction in the research on luxury brands.
As with any study, there are limitations to this research. First, one potential limitation
of this study is the number of samples (n = 198). A second limitation of this study may be
the significant number (56%) of female subjects. This may bias the result in term of
gender’s effect on behavioural intention. Finally, our study was conducted in a very large
336 S.N. Sanyal et al.

metropolitan city Kolkata in India. The results may not be generalisable to customers in
other countries and cultures. Customers in other countries might not share the same
exposure, experience, level of availability of luxury brands, the comprehensiveness of
legal framework and policies protecting customers and others.
To conclude, this study has supported the generalisability of the theory of reasoned
action in predicting individual’s behavioural intention to develop the intention to
purchase luxury brands. We have empirically tested the research model based on this
theory in Kolkata city as the sampling frame. Two hypotheses as suggested by the theory
in this study were well supported and one not. The third hypothesis that was not
supported could open up a new direction of further research. Future researchers can find
out the presence of any mediating factor that can lead to the transformation of purchase
intention to the actual purchase of luxury brands.

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