Purchase Intentions of Foreign Luxury Brand Handbags among Consumers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Luxury products are purchased and adorned by people to display wealth, prosperity, success, social status or merely the satisfaction of a superior product quality. The dominance of any one of these reasons for luxury goods purchase is influenced by culture. None of such study was found in Malaysia. In this study, we explored the motivations to purchase luxury brand handbags among Kuala Lumpur consumers. Unlike others, we also consider income as an added factor in perceived customers’ intentions to purchase in addition to the specific functional, experiential, symbolic, social influence; and trait of vanity dimensions. We used the self-administered questionnaires on 382 shoppers selected by the convenience sampling in major high-end shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Data was analysed for simple frequencies, factor analysis, correlation and hierarchical regression. Results indicate that functional value, vanity achievement and household income directly influence Malaysian consumers purchase intention for luxury goods. Marketing strategies to expand foreign luxury brand bags in Malaysia that incorporate these factors could have excellent chance of success.