Luxury brands and e-commerce - why do luxury customers buy online?

Abstract: This thesis investigates the online purchasing behaviour of luxury customers as well as the concerns they may have concerning online shopping. The purpose is to detect what makes luxury customers purchase through an online channel rather than the physical shops.A study has been conducted relying on primary data collected through an online survey and secondary data from industry reports, books and articles written by luxury and fashion experts, newspaper articles, and articles concerning legislative development in e-commerce. The secondary data and personal knowledge of the authors has been used to form hypotheses. The survey answers have been used to attempt to falsify the hypotheses.The study concludes that the price sensitivity traditionally associated with luxury consumption does not transcend to the online environment and price savings constitute the main reason for buying online. However, even luxury customers who have experience with purchasing online do not necessarily want to buy all products online.The thesis makes three main contributions: (1) determining that the purchasing process of luxury customers is more complicated than shown in literature, (2) determining that luxury customers are price sensitive online, and (3) determining which factors prevent visitors of e-boutiques from becoming customers in the e-boutique.