An Investigation of Intrinsic Factors That Influence Customers’ Purchasing Intentions of Luxury Fashion Goods Among Belgian Women

The luxury concept, once associated with scarcity, has changed considerably with the proliferation of premium brands. Simultaneously, the millennials reinterpreted this concept with their taste for fast fashion. In spite of these influences, the extrinsic nature of consumption has dominated past research publications and has been highlighted even before the Y generation by theories such as Bandwagon, Snob and Veblen. Identifying the research gap has led to the exploration of intrinsic purchase intentions towards luxury fashion brands. The House of Delvaux was chosen as a study case. The finest leather goods produced by this Belgian luxury brand encompass all the attributes that provide intrinsic emotional pleasure. Qualitative research methods were applied, using open-ended questions and projective methods. Respondents consisted of French and Dutch-speaking Belgian women between 20-40 years. The Leximancer software identified clusters of related words around luxury fashion that proved to be coherent with the subsequent stages of the analysis. What emerged from the research was the importance of personal opinions in both the X and Y generations. Functional and individual values were the key findings, regardless of the age group. For millennials, hedonic motives and self-identity had a strong influence on purchase intentions whereas the perceived values for the X generation were quality and exclusiveness. Further research should be conducted on the same topic, using this time the quantitative method on a larger sample of respondents, to investigate the way luxury brands are perceived in relation to power and female-female competition. Recommendations for marketers were also formulated. Based on the interview analysis, advertising campaigns should focus on the core values of luxury brands. Furthermore, marketers should prioritize advertising through digital media. Millennials were born in the digital era and social media has become their means of communication. Nevertheless, this research has pointed out that millennials are not mere followers. They have their own opinions on luxury fashion and their own personal style