Louis Vuitton and the Travelling Chinese
Consumer
Based on an online article by Fung, J. et al (2012) entitled "Louis Vuitton and the Travelling Chinese Consumer", even
in its early years, LV’s handbags and luggage have established a symbol of
status globally.
At the initial stage, Louis recognized the people’s demand for
flat trunks so that even when the bags are being handled roughly, it will not
be damaged easily. Besides that, he only caters to the rich who appreciates his
detailed craftsmanship and quality; therefore this free publicity of the rich using his products then gave the
public the impression that only the rich uses products from LV so it becomes a status symbol. Subsequently,
advertising plays a huge role in the success of the brand to educate the
customers to recognize products whether it is a necessity, luxury or an
inferior. Two reasons a brand does advertising is firstly to shift the demand
curve to the right and secondly, to make the price less elastic. The geographic
area that I will be looking into is China.
Firstly,
advertising shift the demand curve to the right. This means that people will
demand more compared before at a given price. This is because effective
advertising such as getting popular artists to wear their brand will help gain
attention from the people and this will lead people to have desire to own their
own LV products. For example in China, seeing the fact that 10% of the global
purchasing power of luxury items comes from China, Louis Vuitton took the
initiative to fortify the relationship with the Chinese consumer by having the
first ever Asian male, Godfrey Gao to showcase their products. In addition, if
the publicity really did its work by increasing people’s desire to own LV
products, people will be prepared to pay at a higher price for it. As a result,
there will be more people willing to supply LV products to buyers. This is
because according to the law of supply, “the higher the price of good, the
greater is the quantity supplied” therefore as we can see now, there are many shops
selling LV products and also branches opened in almost every mall.
Secondly,
advertising also focuses on making the price less elastic. The reason for this is
so that every rise in the price will not have any significant fall in the sales
of the product. The only way they could do this is by boosting brand loyalty
from customers that enjoy luxury products by believing that the competitors’
brands are inferior to theirs.
Hence sophisticated advertisements and campaigns
play a major role in further express to customers that there are no close
substitutes to the brand. Besides that, by making the brand’s product distinct
from the rest will further reassure the customers that no other product can
compete with that special brand. For example in 1896, LV introduced its first signature
monogram canvas that prevented counterfeits as it was hard to imitate the
layout of the canvas because every end of the canvas at the bag will have the
same symbol.
Besides that, it is also seen that LV is very particular with
their customers in China by finding a comfortable way for their customers to
convey their wants by employing Chinese staffs, Chinese speaking staffs and
also highly proficient staffs. In addition, LV also set up educational and
interactive websites to expand their market to the youngsters. The reason for
this is to influence them in their early years to purchase LV products.
Subsequently, LV came out with a lower-priced “accessible luxury” items to
encourage sales from the young and aspiring buyers who are not financially
stable. Moreover, LV was also featured in the National Museum of China entitled
“Louis Vuitton Voyages”. Therefore
with all these, LV manage to create a brand which is less elastic to price due
to their product differentiation, competitive advantage and their value-added
services and effort.
Similarly,
there are also other factors that determine the demand of a luxury product
aside from advertising. Firstly is the income of the people or also known as
the income elasticity of demand. Income elasticity of demand measures the
sensitivity of the demand for a good or service to a change in income when
other things remain the same. This can be calculated by taking
the percentage change in quantity demanded over percentage change in income.
Income elasticity of demand: Percentage change in quantity demanded
Percentage change in income
There are three
ranges of the income elasticity of demand which is greater than one that means
the good is a normal good, positive and less than one and negative which means
it is an inferior good. When the elasticity of the demand is greater than one, the
income is said to be elastic. This is because the percentage change in quantity
demanded is higher than the percentage change in income. Hence, there are a lot
of substitutes in the market due to the customer’s responsiveness to their
income as people are more likely to shift their demand to other products that
are more inferior. In this case, LV products are known to be a form of luxury
product because the demand for it is responsive to income. According to the
article, the demand of luxury items in China has increased due to the increase
in their wealth and disposable income hence they could purchase more luxury
items.
Besides that, due to China’s high
luxury taxes and taste, they tend to shop abroad because of the cheaper
product, better selection and greater “show-off” value. In one case, LV France
had used up their three months of inventory in just one month so they were
forced to limit to two leather goods per customer daily. This in turn will
cause a surplus in the luxury products back in China and might prompt the
government to reduce the tax on luxury products since they need to increase
their domestic consumption for the better of their country. Conversely, China’s
government is planning to enforce the retroactive taxes on luxury purchases
made outside China to bring back their country’s purchasing power.