Exploring relationship between value perception and luxury purchase intention: A case of Indian millennials

Although India is home to the world’s largest millennial population, so far, hardly any studies exist that explain the key drivers leading to the luxury goods consumption among this generational cohort. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop and empirically test the conceptual framework designed to measure the relationship between luxury value perceptions and purchase intentions among the young Indian luxury consumers, and, second, to examine the moderating effect of gender in the relationship between luxury value perceptions and purchase intentions.

A purposive sampling technique was employed to collect the data from young luxury fashion consumers. Statistical tests including confirmatory factor analysis, multi-group analysis and structural equation modeling were applied for data analysis.

The findings show that the conspicuous value is the most significant determinant of luxury purchase intention followed by the experiential value, susceptibility to normative influence and utilitarian value. The uniqueness value was found to have weak relationship with purchase intention. Furthermore, results revealed that the relationship between the luxury values and the luxury buying intentions does not vary significantly between male and female.

This is one of the first studies that provides meaningful insights to the academicians and marketing practitioners about why millennials buy luxury fashion brands in emerging markets like India.