22-06-2013, 11:50 AM
Consumer Behavior of Luxury Automobiles: A Comparative Study between Thai and UK Customers’ Perceptions
INTRODUCTION
Total worldwide sales of premium luxury and entry luxury saloons and sports cars are of the order of 1.5 million units a year (Scheele, 1995: 190). The major luxury markets today are the USA, Germany, UK and Japan. The £21.1 billion UK new car market competes with France and Italy, to be the second biggest in Europe behind Germany (Harbor, 1997: 7,22). The new registration of luxury marques’ cars in 1997 in UK alone was 154,506 units (MAVEL, 1997: 59). In other markets, especially in South East Asia there are, of course, significant sales of luxury cars. However, these are limited to total volume either by the overall industry size or by local market conditions and preferences. Accordingly, the luxury car market overall is currently undertaking a social change with
luxury brands seeming less remote, less different, and less exclusive with the quality of life improving. As a result, increasing competition between makes has intensified the importance of brand identity.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR OF LUXURY AUTOMOBILES’ CUSTOMERS:
Most current owners of luxury cars tend to have purchased a car previously, the customer has potentially developed an attitude toward it. Here, an attitude becomes an evaluating judgment (desire or not desire) based on prior or present experience such as previous satisfaction from dealers or products and services (after sales and warranty), driving experience, and socio-economic status of customers. It is also possible that an attitude can be developed based on prior information without experience, as when consumers develop preferences or biases for or against brands based on the brands’ images in the marketplace. This also depends largely on purchasing power of individual customers. Customers may have a favorable attitude towards some manufacturers’ luxury cars, but may lack the ability due to insufficient purchasing power or willingness to take buying action. On the other hand, luxury or lower luxury (lower-priced) manufacturers’ cars may be neglected by customers who have high purchasing power (or over-purchasing power in this sense). For example, most buyers (with high, medium, or low income) tend to have a preferable attitude towards some manufacturers’ luxury cars such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, and Rolls-Royce, though the majority of them might not even have had a test drive before. The difference is that customers with low to medium income may still also anticipate the quality of smaller sized cars of manufacturers from the lower segments such as Fiat, Ford, Peugeot, and Vauxhall, as these cars are affordable to them. In other words, cars from lower segments have the meaning of ‘reality’ to them.