What drives luxury shoppers in China and India across urban and semi-urban markets?
Luxury goods are not just about quality and craftsmanship. They are also about status, identity and social influence. But what motivates luxury consumers to buy expensive products in large emerging markets such as China and India? And how do these motivations vary across different urban and semi-urban segments of consumers [Read Story]
Luxury industry: cracking the conundrum of lower-tier cities across emerging markets
Luxury brands market their products in many large emerging markets like India and China thinking consumers are the same within these countries. Our latest research shows that significant differences exist within higher - and lower - tier cities in their consumption motivations. We provide guidance on successfully negotiating these complexities.
LVMH & Tiffany: The master negotiator is at play again!
The LVMH's Tiffany acquisition was announced in late 2019. However, recently, rumours have emerged that LVMH has got cold fit in paying 37% premium for an acquisition in this COVID-19 era. I offer an alternative account of what may be going on behind the scene. Speculative I know, but nothing is impossible in the master negotiator Bernard Arnault's playbook. Have a read!
A potential solution to the trillion dollar digital shopping cart abandonment challenge
Digital shopping cart abandonment is a trillion dollar problem that is prevalent across the e-commerce industry irrespective of the sector. Our research sheds light on how to solve this challenge using the self-regulation motivation.
What is your digital value strategy?
Value is a fundamental driver for consumer decision making. However, many organizations are unclear about what value consumer derive from their products or services. Moreover, this is even more complicated in the digital environment. Using research over the past decade, I provide a strategic toolkit to think and thrive through developing and managing digital value for your organization.
Engaging the gamers: what motivates gamers to purchase virtual goods
Virtual goods market generates more than $15 billion in annual revenue globally and is rising rapidly. We demonstrate how and which extrinsic and intrinsic motivations influence gamers to engage and purchase virtual goods. In examining the interactive effects of individual- and group-level variables, we uncover the social influence dynamics that drive virtual purchase behaviour. Thus, we answer if the virtual economy-based purchase behaviour demonstrates an extension of real-world behaviour.
Beyond Bling: Comparing Conspicuous Consumption in Today’s Society
Funded by British Academy, I led project with Professor Keyoor Purani at IIMK. The project looks at the influence of economic conditions on contemporary conspicuous consumption tendencies among consumers in the UK and India. The project findings demonstrate the variations between the British and Indian consumers showing how socio-economic market conditions influence conspicuous consumption.
Listen to my latest radio interview
They are not all same (Part 2): Differences in Asian Luxury Consumption
In the part 1, I discussed how many luxury brands are failing across Asia as they treat Asian consumers as a homogeneous group and how it led my co-authors and I to examine this phenomenon in-depth. Using the value perceptions framework and theory of impression management, we discovered some very interesting differences among consumers in three largest emerging economies of Asia, namely, China, India and Indonesia. In the first part, I wrote about what Indian consumers’ value the most and how to specifically market to these consumers. In this part, I will offer comparative findings regarding the [Read Story]
Synthetic diamonds are forever too, or are they!
Lab-made, synthetic diamonds are becoming increasingly similar in quality, cut, and clarity to natural ones. Technological advances has resulted in their growing use and acceptance in industry – but cracking the luxury consumer market is the final frontier. This is in large part to do with the the way consumers place value on products. The idea of creating diamonds in a laboratory is not new. Scientists have been at it since the mid-19th century, armed with the knowledge that diamonds are the product of carbon that’s exposed to high heat and pressure. But applying this in a [Read Story]
They are not all same (Part 1): how Asian consumers differ in their luxury consumption – case of India
While luxury in Asia is booming with the rise of new money and an affluent consumption class the picture is not rosy for all the luxury brands emerging within or outside of Asia. Some stellar examples of struggle involve Prada and Mulberry in China, Aigner and de Grisogono in India and Ermenegildo Zegna entering, leaving and re-entering Indian market. Moreover, with Chinese gift-giving on sudden decline with the subtle message from the premier, many luxury brands have their work cut out in present and future regarding how to succeed in these rapidly growing but ever so competitive and fickle [Read Story]