Luxury Brand Purchasing Intentions of Immigrants in the Australian Context

Luxury Brand Purchasing Intentions of Immigrants in the Australian Context

This paper reports on results that aimed to examine the influence of ethnic identity on immigrant consumers' luxury brand purchase intention in their host country and investigate the moderating role of demographic variables on this relationship. Also, the study examined the influence of acculturation on immigrant consumer behaviours in their host country. Mainly, the role of acculturation and luxury brand purchasing intentions were investigated. The current study applied a quantitative online survey of 400 Indian sub-continent born immigrants in Australia.

The findings of this thesis suggested that a high level of ethnic affiliation is more likely to show higher luxury brand purchase intentions. Immigrants with higher family income, younger age and shorter stay in the host country showed higher ethnic identity than the others. The thesis confirmed that immigrants' education, gender and length of stay in the host country moderates the relationship between ethnic identity and luxury brand purchase intention in the host country. The findings also revealed that the behaviour acculturation dimension of immigrants was significantly negatively related to their luxury brand purchase intention. Although immigrants' overall acculturation was significantly related to the luxury brand purchase intention, their language and identity acculturation had no significant effect, supporting the multidimensional framework's influence on immigrant consumer behaviour. Immigrants with higher family income, younger age and less academic education showed more luxury brand purchase intention; however, no moderating demography was found between acculturation and purchase intention. This thesis aims to help practitioners formulate a unified segmentation strategy for purchasing luxury brands based on immigrants' ethnic identity, acculturation, and sociodemographic stance. This paper highlights the specific needs of ethnic consumers. Incorporating immigrant consumers into the marketplace will help create a homogenised society and more integration of immigrants into the larger society in the host country. Findings shed light on the role of ethnic identity and acculturation as the key elements that affect immigrants' luxury brand purchase behaviour considering their integration level into the host country.

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