What inhibits consumers in emerging countries from engaging in status consumption? A latent class conjoint analysis approach

This paper aims to address how the status consumption tendency of consumers in emerging markets is negatively influenced by five individual traits: self-control, self-actualization, religiosity, future orientation and self-efficacy.

A conjoint experiment measured the importance of certain smartphone product attributes. A latent class regression analysis was then employed to estimate segment-level part-worths using conjoint data collected from 500 Bangladeshi consumers.

The results revealed three segments with members that differ in how they evaluate smartphone product attributes. Those susceptible to a product's brand name (i.e. status seekers) appear to have low self-control, are less religious and are more myopic.

An issue may exist with generalizability, as the analysis was conducted based on data collected in one country and for one product category. However, this study's framework provides direction for future researchers to better understand status consumption in emerging countries.

The findings are useful for marketers selling status products to improve market segmentation and target their offerings more efficiently.

The originality of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates the influencing factors of status consumption that have not been addressed in the extant literature. Second, it is the first to use experimental data to measure segment-level status consumption accurately.