Conspicuous Consumption Essay

Conspicuous consumption refers to the ostentatious display of wealth for the purpose of acquiring or maintaining status or prestige. In Asia, luxury products convey the importance of status and face giving in Asian culture (Conspicuous consumption, org, 2014). Therefore, Luxury goods companies regard Asia as the area of greatest importance (Doran, 2014).
The phenomenon of conspicuous consumption in China
Recent studies have shown that the Chinese consumers care more about what brand the product is, than almost anyone else in the world. A Harris Interactive Survey of young Chinese and American adults in year 2011 found that 72% of Chinese respondents considered “brand name” to be an important factor when purchasing clothes (Siegel, 2013). This reflects the conspicuous consumption condition in China that Chinese buy luxury products basically in order to highlight social status and their wealth.
In Chinese culture, rich people always wear ‘jewelry and gold’ to reveal his/her high social status. Currently, Chinese economy is experiencing meteoric growth. More and more Chinese families have enough disposable funds to support their extra daily consumptions except dishes (Bergsten.2008). At the same time, Luxury goods companies is increasingly focusing on marketing the Chinese market because of huge consumer groups. It is also be noticed that consumption customer base was twenty-five or younger.
In addition, this sort of Chinese conspicuous consumption group seems to indulge in purchase luxury brand .There is a interview of a Chinese student about why she spend thousands dollar for a luxury bag, and the answer is buying luxury goods makes she feel successful and fulfils aspiration of belonging in a higher social circle. What ‘s more...

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...ally from two perspectives which are the social influence and individual factors. In order to indentify the fundamental reason, we have a survey to analyze the phenomenon. As a result, we think the social factors such as materialism and post-cultural revolution are the big background which built a microscopic environment, but the main factors are the individual ones especially the pursuit of the high quality and the psychological satisfaction. As the young generation’s conspicuous behavior are heavily rely on others, even the benchmark of overspending should be set differently depends on different situation, but generally the phenomenon of conspicuous behavior could cause the financial burden and the misguided value. We hold the point that the conduct of conspicuous consumption behavior should not be promoted but should be addressed and reduce the negative impact.