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Do Consumers Care About Ethical-Luxury?

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Abstract

This article explores the extent to which consumers consider ethics in luxury goods consumption. In particular, it explores whether there is a significant difference between consumers’ propensity to consider ethics in luxury versus commodity purchase and whether consumers are ready to purchase ethical-luxury. Prior research in ethical consumption focuses on low value, commoditized product categories such as food, cosmetics and high street apparel. It is debatable if consumers follow similar ethical consumption patterns in luxury purchases. Findings indicate that consumers’ propensity to consider ethics is significantly lower in luxury purchases when compared to commoditized purchases and explores some of the potential reasons for this reduced propensity to identify or act upon ethical issues in luxury consumption.

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Notes

  1. The UK’s best selling Fairtrade© Coffee.

  2. Games-Howell post-hoc ANOVA’s were selected because 10 of the 29 items quantitatively assessed provided significant results at the <0.1 level on Levene’s test for equality of variance. However, normality Q–Q plots suggested most of the data tended towards normality allowing for parametric testing.

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  1. University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Iain A. Davies & Zoe Lee

  2. Cranfield School of Management and Total UK Ltd., Watford, Hertfordshire, WD17 1TQ, UK

    Ine Ahonkhai

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Davies, I.A., Lee, Z. & Ahonkhai, I. Do Consumers Care About Ethical-Luxury?. J Bus Ethics 106, 37–51 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1071-y

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