Mechanism of retail therapy during stressful life events: The psychological compensation of revenge consumption toward luxury brands

During times of stress and challenging life events, individuals often seek coping mechanisms to build resilience and manage emotional distress. Recently, Korean consumers have exhibited a rise in revenge consumption of luxury products as a response to the uncontrollable COVID-19, deemed one of their most stressful life events. Consequently, this study explores the precursors of revenge consumption and investigates whether indulging in luxury goods can improve consumers' psychological well-being within the context of retail therapy. Drawing on Compensatory Control Theory (CCT), our proposed model empirically tests the relationship between negative emotions, shopping motivations, revenge consumption behaviors, self-esteem, and subjective well-being. Data were gathered from 324 South Korean participants via an online survey, all of whom had purchased luxury products during the pandemic. The results of the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis reveal the process of psychological compensation through luxury consumption, which had a therapeutic effect on self-esteem and subjective well-being. Additionally, Multi-Group Analysis (MGA) depicts income-based differences in the revenge consumption mechanism. These findings highlight that when individuals experience a lack of control, anxiety, or fear, they seek measures to recover their psychological state through luxury purchases. This study also offers valuable insights for luxury brands considering strategies to support customers’ well-being during stressful life events.     

Attitude toward luxury cruise,fantasy, and willingness to pay a price premium

This study applies the functional theory of attitudes in examining the structural relationships among the social-adjustive, value-expressive, hedonic, and utilitarian functions of attitudes, fantasy, and willingness to pay a premium. This study also identifies the moderating roles of sensory innovativeness and maximization in the relationships between the four functions of attitudes and fantasy. An online survey (N?=?543) was conducted to collect data from American respondents. Structural equation modeling analysis was conducted to test proposed hypotheses. Results showed that the four functions of attitudes had significant positive effects on fantasy. In subsequent process, fantasy had a significant positive effect on willingness to pay a premium. Sensory innovativeness moderated the relationship between value-expressive function and fantasy, and maximization moderated the relationship between fantasy and willingness to pay a price premium. Given these findings, valuable theoretical and practical implications are discussed regarding the role of fantasy in luxury cruise decision-making.     

Retail Luxury Strategy: Assembling Charisma through Art and Magic

Luxury retail strategy differs from other retail strategies not merely in distinctive formulations of product, price, distribution, and appeals to customer distinction. Instead, it increasingly stands or falls on the legitimacy of a charismatic creative director. The director offers an aesthetic brand ideology. Luxury retail draws on the principles of art and magic to assemble the charismatic persona of the creative director and to diffuse his aesthetic ideology to the brand. Moreover, luxury retail strategy enlists magical and aesthetic principles within and without the store to achieve these ends. Finally, retail luxury is producer rather than consumer oriented and seeks to generate awe rather than community. This strategy appears to be to some extent a response to legitimacy crises provoked by recent strategic extensions of luxury brands into mass marketing. We offer some implications for marketing in which the charisma of a key personage is at stake.     

The effect of subordinates’ gender on the difference between self-ratings,and superiors’ ratings,of subordinates’ performance in hotels

An appropriate means of subordinate managers’ performance evaluation in an organisation is crucial for identifying their strength and weaknesses for maintaining job commitment, and improving performance on on-going basis [Church, A., 1995. First-rate multirater feedback. Training and Development 49, 42–43; Church, A., Bracken, D., 1997. Advancing the state of the art of 360-degree feedback. Group and Organisation Management 22, 149–161; Atwater, L., Yammarino, F., 1997. Self-other rating agreement: a review and model. Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management. 15, 121–174]. The debate, on whether there is difference between subordinates’ self-ratings of their performance, and superiors’ ratings of it is better, continues. This is because the extant literature is inconclusive. This study contributes towards resolution of the debate at least for the hotel industry in Australia.     

How far can luxury brands travel? Avoiding the pitfalls of luxury brand extension

Brand extensions are always tempting to marketers, and in the case of luxury brands the allure is particularly strong. While the path to luxury brand success may be partly paved with extensions, there are even more examples of brand extension disasters that litter the way. Brand extensions continue to be among the most researched and studied phenomena in marketing. When it comes to luxury brands, however, the factors that lead to successful extension have received far less attention. In this article, we consider the notion of perceived premium degree of the brand as a function of its category, and what we term the degree of adjacency between its product categories. Building on our research, which found that a luxury brand's perceived premium degree has a different impact on profitability depending on whether or not the brand is spread across adjacent product categories, we demonstrate when luxury brand extensions work—and when they fail. Perhaps most importantly, we herein introduce the premium adjacency matrix as a tool for luxury brand managers to consider in formulating extension strategies.     

Quality clusters: Dimensions of email responses by luxury hotels

A growing body of research investigates hospitality Internet use, but usually focuses on websites rather than the most popular Internet application, email. This study uses cluster analysis and the SERVQUAL-P service quality (SQ) model to help address gaps in both academic and applied research of email use in the hospitality industry. The cluster analysis of email responses to a mystery guest survey by luxury hotels identified four hotel clusters. The clusters showed significant differences across all 24 email response variables and support four dimensions of email SQ corresponding to SERVQUAL-P's four dimensions.     

Price placebo effect in hedonic consumption

Given the widespread use of premium pricing strategies as a marketing practice, how consumers evaluate premium pricing actions is an interesting issue for both marketing researchers and practitioners. Thus, the objective of this study was to examine perceptions of premium prices and the role of prices, which act as a cue that improves consumers’ experiences in an upscale café setting. Indeed, the results indicated that both price–quality schema and prestige sensitivity were significant factors that induce a positive overall perception of quality at luxury cafés, including coffee, service, and atmosphere. Thus, this study evidences that a price placebo effect exists in hedonic consumption settings. To better understand consumers’ mental accounting based on their income source, the study examined the moderating effect of the origin of the respondents’ income as well. The results revealed that the price tag generates positive consumer responses to café quality.     

Do price promotions drive consumer spending on luxury hotel services? The moderating roles of room price and user-generated content

Price promotion, as price information, and user-generated content (UGC), as non-price information, play an important role in generating luxury hotel revenue. This study empirically investigates how price promotion influences actual consumer spending on luxury hotel services except room price, by considering the contingency role of room price and volume and valence of UGC. Combined data of daily settlements and Tripadvisor customer reviews of a regional luxury hotel chain are used for the analyses. The results indicate that, overall, price promotion negatively influences consumer spending on luxury hotel services and its negative effect is strengthened when the room is higher priced or the valence of UGC is high. Furthermore, a larger volume of intrinsic attribute-related UGC–amenity and location–with price promotion leads to more consumer spending than a larger volume of extrinsic attribute-related UGC–food and staff. The findings provide hotel managers with important insights into pricing and UGC management.     

Luxury marketing: The influences of psychological and demographic characteristics on attitudes toward luxury restaurants

This study examined the influences of psychological characteristics (materialism, uniqueness, hedonism, and perfectionism), and demographic characteristics (gender, age, and income) on attitudes toward luxury restaurants. The results showed that consumers who desire materialism and hedonism had favorable attitudes toward luxury restaurants, whereas consumers who desire uniqueness had unfavorable attitudes toward luxury restaurants. Low income populations exhibited more unfavorable attitudes toward luxury restaurants than did middle and high income populations. Consumers who desire uniqueness weakly associate luxury restaurants with overall good service quality, whereas consumers who desire hedonism strongly associate luxury restaurants with overall good service quality.     

Consumers’ perceived post purchase risk in luxury services

The objectives of this study are to: (1) define the concept of perceived post purchase (3P) luxury risk and (2) develop and validate a psychometrically sound 3P Luxury Risk Scale. A qualitative study and two field studies were conducted to develop and test the scale, and to examine the predictive validity of 3P luxury risk in a nomological network of word-of-mouth (WOM). The survey data is gathered from 333 actual customers of five golf clubs. Integrating structural equation modeling with propensity score analysis, the results of Study 1 reveal that 12 items adequately capture the dimensions of 3P luxury risk. After controlling for framing effects, the results of Study 2 indicate that all of the dimensions of 3P luxury risk negatively influence WOM. This article attempts to shed a new light on the realm of luxury risk studies incorporating normative and behavioral decision-making approaches.