Preface
In fashion business, the luxury sector is very critical. In recent years, many luxury fashion brands have made significant gains in both established and emerging markets. With the global financial unstability, in luxury fashion retailing, proper operations and strategic management are very crucial items on senior management’s agenda. In fact, owing to the recent global financial tsunami and the European debt crisis, many luxury fashion companies are getting more conservative about their product offerings and development. Undoubtedly, the importance of luxury fashion and the recent global economics volatility all mean that there is a need to examine innovative management models and frameworks for supporting luxury fashion retail management. However, there is currently an absence of such a reference source in the literature. As a result, this book carefully selects and features related studies and the respective insights into an edited volume.
This book includes three important parts, namely: (i) reviews and discussions, (ii) quantitative research, and (iii) qualitative research. All the featured papers are peer-refereed, and the topics covered include the following:
• Introduction to luxury fashion retail management
• Evolution of luxury fashion brands
• A review on the evolution of luxury fashion retailing in China
• A review on how self-concept and brand personality affect luxury consumers’ purchasing decisions
• Consumer’s willingness to pay more for luxury fashion apparel made in sweatshops
• Exploring the luxury fashion brands’ personality
• Optimal timing of brand extension in a stochastic market
• Using social media for luxury fashion management
• Luxury fashion and creativity
• Luxury fashion and social media in China
• Fashion luxury brands: bridging the gaps between cutting-edge fashion and corporate social responsibility concerns
Before closing, we would like to take this opportunity to express our hearty thanks to William Achauer (Bill) and Vishal Daryanomel of Springer for their support and constructive advice. We are indebted to all the anonymous reviewers who have provided timely review reports on the submissions. We are grateful for all the authors who have contributed their important research to this book. This book project is partially supported by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (with the grant number: G-UA1Q), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71401029), the Shanghai Pujiang Program (grant number 14PJ1400200), and Chenguang Program (grant number 2016020012).
Contents
Part I Reviews and Discussions
1 Luxury Fashion Retail Management: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 3
Tsan-Ming Choi and Bin Shen
2 Evolution of Luxury Fashion Brands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Vincent Quan and Bin Shen
3 How Does Self-concept and Brand Personality Affect Luxury
Consumers’ Purchasing Decisions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Bang Nguyen, Meng-Shan Sharon Wu
and Cheng-Hao Steve Chen
4 The Evolution of Luxury Fashion Retailing in China . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Francesca Bonetti, Patsy Perry and John Fernie
Part II Quantitative Research
5 Consumer’s Willingness to Pay More for Luxury Fashion
Apparel Made in Sweatshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Ian Phau, Min Teah, Joe Chuah and Johan Liang
6 Exploring the Personality of Luxury Fashion Brands:
Evidence from Young US Consumers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Xiao Tong, Jin Su and Yingjiao Xu
7 Analytical Modeling Research for Luxury Fashion Products:
Optimal Timing of Brand Extension in a Stochastic Market . . . . . . 107
Yasunori Fujita
8 Using Social Media for Luxury Fashion Management . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Peter Bug and Nils Haussmann
Part III Qualitative Research
9 Luxury Fashion and Creativity: Change or Continuity? . . . . . . . . . 147
Joanne Roberts and John Armitage
10 Luxury Brands and Social Media in China: New Trends
and Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Mark Ng
11 Fashion Luxury Brands: Bridging the Gaps Between Cutting-
Edge Fashion and Corporate Social Responsibility Concerns . . . . . 185
Sandra Maria Correia Loureiro
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Luxury Fashion Retail Management:
An Introduction
Tsan-Ming Choi and Bin Shen
Abstract The luxury fashion industry is an important industry. In this introductory chapter, we briefly highlight the latest figures regarding the significance of the luxury fashion industry. Then, we concisely review the recent literature and examine some important topics on luxury fashion retail management. We also introduce the papers featured in this book.
Keywords Luxury fashion retail management _ Luxury fashion industry _ Introduction _ Review
1.1 Introduction
The global luxury market, including fashion and non-fashion products, is very important. According to a marketing study on luxury goods market, the personal luxury goods market (which covers fashion apparel, watches, etc.) is valued EU250 billion in 2015 (D’Arpizio et al. 2015). This figure also represents a 13 % of growth compared to 2014 and more than tripled compared to 20 years ago (D’Arpizio et al. 2015). Among all the luxury brands, Statista.com (2016) reveals that the most valuable one in 2015 is Louis Vuitton Moet Henessy (LVMH), which is a luxury fashion brand, with a brand value of over US$22 billion.
Undoubtedly, the luxury fashion market is critical and there are many emerging trends as well as challenges. For example, changes of consumer behaviors which treasure more on digital experience (Schmidt et al. 2015), and ethical fashion would force luxury fashion retailers to improve their marketing operations and strategies.
The volatility of global economic and political climate, such as the reduction of luxury consumption by Chinese consumers in recent years and the global travel scares (Solca 2015), would also bring challenges to luxury fashion brand’s expansion. The presence of these challenges implies the importance of this topic and calls for more research to be done.
In this introductory chapter, we identify from the most recent literature1 a few crucial areas related to luxury fashion retail management, namely (i) consumer behaviors and branding strategies for luxury fashion, (ii) operations management, and (iii) use of social media and e-platform. For each area, we present some related recent studies and then introduce the related papers featured in this book.