How Consumers Make Purchase Decisions?

There are many reasons why consumers decide to buy luxury goods today, some as an investment, some to reflect status and wealth, while others aim to enhance their quality of life by surrounding themselves with desirable objects. This research looks to identify and understand the 'tangible' and 'intangible' trends of buying high-end luxury goods. This work can help practitioners communicate the ¿essence¿ of their products and/or services in alignment with the end-consumers 'rationale' for purchasing. Consumer Perceived Value is used to rationalise the characteristic features. This paper looks at the stereotypes of 'luxury' and 'premium' goods as separate categories. This provides a background to the main focus of this research by identifying the complex emotional and pragmatic impulses to buy for 'profit' or for 'pleasure'. Three social workshop experiments have been conducted to explore if providers today have been targeting their audience effectively when it comes to communicating characteristics like material value, rarity, heritage and craftsmanship. Finally, this research gives suggestions for equating prominence of a product when different people perceive luxury in many ways.