Consumer Motives and Values: An Exploratory Study of Chinese Middle Classes' Luxury Products Consumption

The purpose of this research is to explore the perceptions of the Chinese middle classes’ luxury consumption and motives for purchasing luxury products. Literature has been reviewed in terms of three aspects: the definition of ‘luxury’, consumer motives and cultural value influence. A framework of co-creating five luxury values from Tynan, McKechnie and Chhuon (2009) is focus of the evaluation and applied to examine Chinese middle classes’ motives for luxury consumption. A qualitative research method is used to conduct the in-depth and semi-structured interviews with eight interviewees who are all from Guangdong Province China and matched the definition of China’s middle class from Wang (2010). The findings of the research reveal that China’s middle class holds different perceptions towards the word ‘luxury’ and think that high price and well-known brand are most important aspects to distinguish the non-luxury and luxury products. Furthermore, it is found that symbolic/expressive and experiential/hedonic values are both discovered as the dominant motives for the Chinese middle classes' luxury products consumption. Also, it is worthwhile to note that luxury consumption motives for China's middle class vary according to gender. In addition, the research found that the middle class in China purchases luxury products with stronger personal orientation by coding a model of personal orientation toward Luxury-Brand Consumption (PO-LBC) (Tsai, 2005). In terms of considering two traditional Chinese cultural value influences (Confucianism and face consciousness) it is believed that enhancing face is a main contributor to purchase luxury products for Chinese middle class