Consumer Behavior Regarding Luxury Perfumes: Key Elements for Marketing Strategy Design

Methodology

Based on an applied methodology perspective, the content of this chapter is based on the following research activities:

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  Identification, search for and analysis of secondary information on the luxury phenomenon and its characteristics, perceptions of luxury brands, the luxury fragrance market and its characteristics and consumers, in general, and luxury fragrance consumers, specifically.

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  Critical analysis of said documentary sources via comparison with opinions of sector professionals, obtained through five in-depth interviews conducted with managers of the Spanish selective perfume and cosmetics industry (three manufacturers and two distributors of Spanish subsidiaries of multinational leaders of the sector).

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  Development of qualitative research via focus groups with luxury fragrance purchasers and users.

Participants were deliberately selected based on researcher’s criteria, to guarantee the presence of male and female luxury fragrances consumers, and intentionally, to ensure the participation of individuals with different occupations, income levels, lifestyles, etc., that are traditionally linked to the different age groups.

Therefore, six focus groups were conducted, in which 35 luxury-fragrance consumers in Spain participated (distributed between men and women and grouped by age: between 18 and 29, 30 and 44, and 45 and older) and were selected using the snowball sampling method. Look at the profile of participants in Table 1.