Exploring the impact of religiousness and cultureon luxury fashion goodspurchasing intention

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to investigate the effect of religiosity and culture on Nigerian Muslim consumer’s intention to purchase luxury goods.Design/methodology/approachThe survey included a sample of 372 Nigerian Muslims from the middle and upper-income groups who live in Lagos and Kano in Nigeria.FindingsPlenty of luxury brands are seeking to find ways to overgrow in emerging markets. Focussing on Nigeria, this study identifies Nigerian people’s cultural orientation, religious beliefs and examines the social and personal variables affecting the consumers’ purchasing intention for luxury goods. This study stresses that Nigerian consumers’ intention to purchase luxury products are impacted by attitude, subjective norms and culture. However, Nigerian people’s intention to purchase luxury goods is not influenced by religious beliefs and Islam morals. While culture has a significant relationship with both attitudes towards behaviour and subjective norms, the religious beliefs encourage both subjective norms and a positive attitude towards the behaviour.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has limitations in connection with two of its major objectives. The study applied the perspective of Nigerian Muslims. Thus, the research will not be able to clarify the fact that beyond this limited geographical area. Future research may widen the focus on cultural and religious beliefs on the intention to purchase luxury goods by adding other elements, such as normative beliefs and attitudinal beliefs.Practical implicationsThe findings of the research define some implications for marketers with regard to the importance of social norms and religion in point of increasing the purchasing intention for luxury goods. Findings reflect that Nigerian consumers are impacted by subjective norms and cultural orientation. This means that luxury consuming is seen to achieve social recognition in the society. These results show that improving social acceptance through luxury goods consumption may create profitable outcomes for luxury brand firms.Originality/valueThe attractive findings of the study proposed that luxury brand managers should balance their investment in terms of the use of word-of-mouth, reference groups and fashion magazines to develop a favourable attitude towards luxury brands through. Although cultural values, references groups and consumer’s beliefs critically matter for luxury consuming, religious beliefs of Nigerian consumers have no effect on consumer’ purchase intention for a luxury product.