The Aftermath of the Crisis on Luxury Consumption

The credit crunch of 2009 and the crisis that followed it, has brought to a lot of industry major changes. Interestingly, for the first time, the luxury industry, which had a reputation to be crisis proof, has also been affected by this crisis. The scope of this study is to understand the changes that occurred in the luxury industry, by analyzing the luxury consumer behavior during the crisis, in two different markets : Italy and the United States. Several new consumer behavior are emerging as a consequence of the crisis. These behaviors can be regrouped into 4 macro trends : The Search for Value, Spending Less for More, Inconspicuous Consumption and Technology. Each of these trends include sub trends. For example: The Search for Value, includes consumer behavior such as looking for better quality/price ratio, timeless pieces, greater consumer involvement, more information and less materialism by looking for products that offer better quality of time spent with family or at home. The Search for Value and its sub trends was chosen to be tested in the two different markets developing hypothesis. Then, verified by interviewing several store managers, of two luxury brand.