The Psychology of Luxury Consumers
In so many ways, buying luxury is completely different from buying other products. Consumers are much more psychologically involved in the process of buying luxury, and it generally constitutes what we would call “a big decision.” People simply don’t invest the amount of time, energy, and emotion into shopping around for their weekly groceries that they do when buying luxury. Understanding the psychology of luxury buyers is absolutely key for any luxury brand. The question really is: what exactly is it that drives people to opt for luxury products when there are cheaper and more accessible alternatives available?
For consumers, buying luxury products is about so much more than just getting your hands on quality products. Acquiring luxury means engaging in a particular lifestyle and procuring a particular identity. When we acquire and showcase something luxurious we had longed for, we experience a natural high. This is because acquiring luxury helps activate the neurotransmitter dopamine, also known as a “happy chemical,” as it is released in response to pleasurable experiences, and also generates the desire to repeat those experiences.
Fundamentally, buying luxury is an emotionally-driven process. Attachment to a particular brand is foundational to the psychology of luxury buyers. When we form emotional attachments to certain luxury brands and products, acquiring them provides us with a distinct sense of satisfaction, differentiation, and accomplishment—the kind of experiences that buying mass-produced products simply can’t replicate.
Buying luxury increases both our self-esteem and sense of place in the world. Now, of course the good craftsmanship or manufacturing techniques associated with luxury products play an important role in their desirability, but this is merely one aspect of what drives the luxury buyer.
As such, luxury marketing isn’t just about simply designing and selling quality products. People buy luxury in order to showcase something about themselves. Acquiring a product that is exclusive and scarce satisfies our innate longing for satisfaction and accomplishment in a way that other products simply can’t. Owning genuine luxury makes us feel like we are part of an exclusive social group, and one of the primary motivations for buying luxury is the desire to signal one’s social status.
Yet in luxury purchases, it also isn’t just about the psychological effects generated by the product itself. The very process involved in making the decision to buy luxury is a deeply psychological process. By making a choice for a particular luxury brand, the consumer is given a unique opportunity to express their sense of self and identity, and as they share their decision with peers one pertinent question always remains at the forefront: “What will this choice say about me?” Buying luxury therefore serves as a form of self-expression, whereby consumers showcase their exclusive tastes and social standing.
Communicating your brand identity throughout the entire marketing process enables potential customers to ascertain whether the brand aligns with their individual sense of self. The central aim of luxury marketing should always be establishing that emotional connection with customers.
Through the process of buying luxury itself, long-lasting psychological bonds are formed. These bonds often form the basis of future interactions with the brand. Brands should create a holistic customer experience where great service is complemented by sensory marketing. Customers associate certain smells and sights or images with the brands they’ve formed psychological attachments to, and these sensory experiences immediately generate an emotional response.
Marketing strategies and customer service aimed at stimulating the senses therefore play a vitally important role in terms of not only providing a more satisfying consumer experience, but also for establishing and solidifying those attachments which ensure that customers come back to your brand time and again for repeat purchases.
Understanding this mix of social and emotional factors which lies at the core of the psychology of luxury helps brands interpret and predict buying patterns. And this means not just understanding which luxury products buyers are looking for, but always keeping in mind the role of luxury in terms of shaping desirable lifestyles and identities. In this regard, the importance of differentiating your brand’s image from competitors in can hardly be overstated. Without truly understanding the psychology of luxury buyers, brands will never be able to create the right brand narrative and the meticulous customer experience needed to build up brand loyalty.
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Learn more about Luxury Academy London:
https://www.lux.ac/lux
Please do a video on why luxury stores make customers line up outside but then also the why people are happy to line up outside in all weather.
I see no luxury in lining up like a sheep waiting to get sheared.
Real luxury includes extensive and costly products which need elaborate expenditures of time, effort, money and skill to achieve. It other words it is not done on the cheap or quickly; In contrast, "luxury" consists of buying a very expensive logo backed up by inflated marketing budgets and fancy stores to give the illusion of something special.
This is why they say that expensive name brand watch buyers are extremely emotional about their watches. Emotional means irrational.
I tend to disagree when people speak like this. I drive luxury cars but there’s nothing you could offer me to convince me to buy a Porche or Mclaran or wear Fendi. It’s about preference. Some people use luxury items to display their status & some people use their career titles or romantic partner. Some people really do buy luxury for the quality. Anything slightly out of your affordability range can be categorized as luxury. If it’s tasteful to you, you’ll spend beyond rationality to acquire it. In that light, everyone is a luxury consumer of something. Luxury is simply a word used to describe that which is rare & not easily accessible in YOUR world.
LUXURY THAT ARE MADE IN SWEATSHOPS!!! LOL
You sir, have yourself a new subscriber. This is just what I was looking for
It is not luxury; it is overpriced branding.
I am a digital homeopath and you videos are really meaningful and helpful as every piece of work I do is completely bespoke to the person and I have developed some really amazing emotional scans and trying to frame them to fit the upper echelons, thanks
Thank you for your insights. I have a very small business and I want to expand my range to offer a luxury range of products to high end restaurants. Your videos have given me some good ideas on how to go about planning this expansion.
Here’s another thought:
Buying luxury – they do not waste my time or ruin my good mood. Top sellers know. They start sweating and apologizing when it’s taking too long — cuz they know we won’t be back. It took us under 90 minutes to buy a Porsche (and the salesman and manger didn’t stop apologizing). It took >6hrs to buy a Honda Odyssey — pass dinner time, pass store closing — and they didn’t care.
The dopamine hit of buying something very expensive and often hard to get, allows people to feel a sense of accomplishment at having "achieved" something…when in reality they are overpaying for a brand and a logo.