The impact of value perceptions on purchase intention of sustainable luxury brands in China and the UK

Despite luxury brands’ eforts to incorporate sustainable development into their branding and product design, studies have shown inconclusive evidence about consumers’ reaction towards such eforts. This study investigates how consumption values (i.e. the need for exclusivity, conformity, and hedonism) afect consumers’ acceptance of luxury brands’ sustainable efforts. It adopts a cross-cultural framework by analysing two countries, namely China and the UK, which difer substantially in some of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, namely power distance, individualism, and indulgence. Using the structural equation modelling in analysing 677 survey responses from actual luxury goods’ consumers in the two countries, we suggest that hedonic needs drive consumers’ purchase intentions in China and the UK. We fnd that the need for exclusivity in sustainable luxury items is negatively related to consumers’ purchase intentions in China, while the need for conformity is positively related. In contrast, these efects are reversed in the UK. Our study implies the need to align the marketing of sustainable luxury with consumption values of consumers to refect the cultural diferences. In theorizing sustainable luxury research, this study provides a deeper understanding of value perceptions pertaining to luxury product consumption and sustainability