Examining the luxury apparel behavioural intentions of middle-class consumers : the case of the South African market

Abstract

The study aims to offer an understanding of luxury apparel behavioural intention amongst middle-class consumers in emerging markets. There is a lack of understanding of luxury apparel behavioural intention amongst the middle class in emerging markets, leading to luxury apparel marketers developing irrelevant marketing strategies. Consequently, this study uses the theory of planned behaviour by incorporating additional luxury-context antecedents and including collectivistic constructs and income levels as moderators to understand luxury apparel behavioural intention amongst the middle class in South Africa. As South Africa is the preferred market for luxury apparel retailers when targeting Africa, the South African middle class was deemed an important group to understand. Through the online questionnaire, 629 responses were obtained. Covariance-based structural equation modelling and moderation analysis were used to assess the proposed relationships. The results show that the impact of luxury-context antecedents - fashion involvement, materialism-success, brand consciousness, status consumption - provide a deeper understanding to how consumers in emerging markets differ in their consumption of luxury apparel. The moderating role of collectivism reveals that middle-class consumers in emerging markets are concerned with conforming and face-saving when purchasing luxury apparel. In addition, the moderating role of income levels reveals that middle-class consumers with lower income are more influenced by their social groups compared to those with higher income, which suggests that lower-income groups are more aspirational and seek acceptance. Further insights are provided regarding the moderating role of collectivism and income levels on behavioural intention.