Social and Psychological Aspects

Impeding Counterfeiting of Luxury Products in India

---

Abstract

The rising consumer thirst for guilt-free consumption has drawn great attention from both academia and marketers. As a growing number of consumers look beyond their pocketbooks to broader societal and environmental issues, such as economic recession and environmental degradation, they are increasingly concerned about the negative impacts that their consumption has on the society and the planet, which lead them to experience a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt is specifically associated with luxury consumption. As the values of luxury consumers evolve from having to being, they become skeptical about purchasing luxury brands that appeal to their extrinsic values and trigger guilty feelings; Instead, become more favorable to purchasing luxury brands that embody their intrinsic values (i.e., seeking personal style, social-consciousness, and environmental-consciousness), which allows them to assuage guilty feelings caused by the undesirable consequences of conspicuous luxury consumption. Despite the recent consumer trend of guilt-free consumption, less is understood on what intrinsic or extrinsic values and individual traits lead consumers to feel a less or more intensity of guilt. To address this void, we employ decision tree modeling to profile luxury fashion consumers into high guilt (HG) and low guilt (LG) groups and identify the significant values and demographics associated with each group. Referring to the key intrinsic (or extrinsic) values and demographics related to HG, opposed to LG, may contribute to luxury brand marketers in developing effective guilt-reducing strategies.

How to Cite:

Shah, A. & Zhao, L., (2016) “Impeding Counterfeiting of Luxury Products in India”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 73(1).