Luxury market study for India

Abstract

This project revolves around understanding the meaning and perception of ‘fashion luxury’ in the context of the Indian market. Luxury has traditionally been perceived in India in terms of essential and investment grade items like gold and real estate, expensive and rare fabric for sarees etc. However, all the studies show the emergence of a very strong and globally oriented upper middle class. This class is breaking free from the community oriented, non-indulgent Indian mentality and is open to exploring fashion, global trends and moving towards hedonistic consumption. Hence it has become increasingly important to understand the psychological, functional and value needs of this class in detail for the modern-day marketer to cater to this class. This project defines the target consumer segment as the ‘rich transitional’. As a result of the study 4 subclasses have been identified within this segment. The needs of the most lucrative segment revolve around esteem needs. This segment is value conscious and is ready to pay the price for a ‘brand name’. However the buying behaviour is heavily influenced by peer perception, long term desires and social appreciation. In the study it is also found that the consumer is not clear on the exact idea of ‘luxury fashion’ and even the lucrative segment confuses it with affordable luxury. This proves that there is a gap that the companies, brands and advertising agencies collectively need to fill so that the value proposition of fashion luxury becomes clear to the Indian consumer. It was also recognized that Indian customer is heavily variety oriented and the value of one product increases for her if the product comes with choice and options. This has been concluded as a consequence of value consciousness in the Indian customer. Lastly, an important result of this study is the difference in the image of self and others when seen possessing luxury fashion. People feel that they have earned the product whereas when others carry a luxury item, they are looking for social acceptance and showing off. As future steps, the results warrant a further investigation to see how this segment makes decision of buying and indulging without the initial bias/constraint of luxury product. This is a future area of research.