Luxury Good Expenditures of Husband and Wife Dyads Incorporating User Attitudes

We study the purchasing behavior of husband and wife dyads in a luxury good category, specifically jewelry. In addition to studying the purchasing behavior of husbands and wives, we are also able to compare that of “users” and “non-users” of the product, as all purchases are made for the wife. We develop a dyadic model of husband-wife expenditures on jewelry which includes three types of information: the attitudes of the wife (user), the purchasing behavior of both members of the dyad (husband and wife), and individual and household demographic information. We find revealing differences in the purchasing behavioral between husbands and wives and the factors that affect those behaviors. Our results are useful for marketers of luxury goods where both wives (users) and husbands (non-users) within a household are the purchasers of the product, and therefore marketing to both is advantageous.

Citation:

Carrie Heilman, Frederick Kaefer, and Samuel Ramenofsky (2007) ,"Luxury Good Expenditures of Husband and Wife Dyads Incorporating User Attitudes", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 34, eds. Gavan Fitzsimons and Vicki Morwitz, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 410-415.