The Seven-Year Guide to Trends in the Affluent Consumer Market for Personal Luxury Goods in the USA

Tapping seven years of historic market research data, Unity Marketing has studied exactly what’s on the mind of today’s luxury consumers for personal luxury goods.  Details about trends in affluent consumer purchases of clothing, fashion accessories, jewelry, watches, beauty, wine and spirits, personal electronics and automobiles are revealed.

Personal Luxury Report USA digs deeply into the spending habits and preferences of high-net-worth (HNW) and high-earners-not-rich-yet (HENRY) individuals.  Case studies of brands that are marketing successfully to today’s affluent consumers brings the data to life and makes it actionable for marketers looking to succeed in today’s value-driven luxury consumer market.

In this can’t miss report, luxury brands, marketers and retailers will learn:

• Who has disposable income for personal luxury goods purchases and where are they spending it today and where will they spend it tomorrow?
• How does today’s affluent customer define luxury?
• Where do luxury consumers shop for fashion, jewelry and beauty and how has their shopping patterns changed pre-and-post recession?
• What brands do ultra-affluents favor in clothing, fashion accessories, beauty and more and how do their preferences differ from the HENRYs (high-earners-not-rich-yet) customers?
• Which are the winners and losers in product choices affluent customers are making?  What’s up and what’s down as measured by spending trends?
• How do affluents — Ultras & HENRYs — spend their money on personal luxury goods?
• What brands are making a connection with today’s luxury consumer?

The latest Personal Luxury Report USA gives marketers data about seven years of trends in what American affluent consumers are buying, where they are shopping, how much they are spending and what brands they favor in personal luxury goods, including clothing, fashion accessories, jewelry, watches, beauty, wine and spirits, personal electronics and automobiles.

The report shares findings of 2,500 luxury consumers surveyed in 2014 (average income $269,500) and compares results from comparable surveys conducted over the past six years, 2008-2013.  This report provides a seven-year perspective of long term trends in the luxury consumer market.

“We designed the Personal Luxury Report USA as both a powerful desk reference and a source for insight into the future trends in the luxury market. The new report provides the kind of detailed facts and figures about the luxury consumer market that will delight data-driven executives. But it also focuses on the mindset and attitudes of the luxury consumer, making it an invaluable tool for luxury brand executives to plan for the future of their changing marketplace,” says Danziger.

Further, the Personal Luxury Report USA is enhanced with case studies of brands that are succeeding in connecting with today’s affluent consumer market.   These case studies bring the data alive to provide guidance and direction for marketers looking to make the research actionable in their businesses.

More about The Personal Luxury Report USA

The Personal Luxury Report USA is the annual compilation of Unity Marketing’s Affluent Consumer Tracking Study’s products and services survey detailing purchases and brand preferences.  It reports the personal luxury goods purchased by ~2,500 affluent consumers over the course of the three-month study period and is the only longitudinal study of its kind that tracks the luxury consumer market, what they buy, how much they spend during and after the recession.

This report includes eye-opening statistics and detailed case studies to demonstrate how your brand can thrive in today’s value-oriented luxury consumer market.  It examines consumers’ buying behavior and spending habits related to eight key product categories including clothing, fashion accessories, beauty, jewelry, watches, automobiles, personal electronics and wine and spirits. It includes historical information for the past seven years in personal luxury, from 2008-2014.  The data included in this report is extracted from the overall Luxury Report USA with detail data included for all personal luxury categories.

The report contains details on personal luxury products bought by affluent consumers, including three-month spending, where these products were purchased and details of the types and brands of products bought.

The Personal Luxury Report USA is written by Pam Danziger, one of the nation’s leading expert on the luxury market and is based upon the kind of in-depth consumer research for which Pam Danziger and Unity Marketing are known.

Guides luxury marketers to shifts and changes in their target customers’ attitudes and shopping behavior

This report provides vital data about what luxuries affluents are buying, how much they are spending, where they are making their purchases and what brands they favor. This report provides invaluable information about the mindset, attitudes and spending habits of the affluent consumers that luxury marketers target. This is not just report about people with high incomes, but affluents who buy luxury goods and services.

More importantly it gives marketers an analytic view of the luxury consumer market going in and coming out of the recession.

Luxury Marketers: This is a report about your customers & your target customers

Details about what these luxury consumers bought, how much they spent, where they made their purchases, and in certain categories the luxury brands they patronized are reported in these major categories of personal luxury, specifically:

Personal Luxuries

• Clothing and Apparel (Women’s casual, dress/business, formal/evening, outerwear; men’s casual, dress/business, formal/evening, outerwear; teen’s clothing; children’s clothing; baby clothing)
• Cosmetics, Fragrance and Beauty Products (Fragrances, perfumes; bath and body lotions; face care; hair care; cosmetics and makeup; sun and tanning products)
• Fashion Accessories (Women’s handbags, shoes, brief cases, and fashion accessories, such as scarves, belts; men’s wallets, brief cases and men’s fashion accessories, including shoes, belts, etc.; luggage for men and women)
• Jewelry (Women’s and men’s jewelry by type, including necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, bridal/wedding, pins and brooches; women’s and men’s jewelry by material, including 14k and above gold, sterling silver, platinum, gold plate or vermeil, costume jewelry; and women’s and men’s jewelry by stone, including diamonds, other precious gemstones, semi-precious gemstones, pearl, faux or man-made, no gemstone content)
• Watches (Women’s and men’s watches by style, including formal/dress or casual/sports)-
• Wine, Liquor and Spirits (Wine, champagne, vodka, whiskey, rum, scotch, cognac, bourbon, sherry/port)-
• Personal Electronics (iPods and other MP3 devices; cameras; cellular phones; laptop computers & notebooks; PDA’s)
• Automobiles (Euro, Asian and U.S luxury models)

Provides marketers with facts and data that support strategic decisions

This report provides the facts and figures you need to develop winning marketing and business strategies. By working with the facts, not fantasies, you have a much better chance of success marketing to the luxury consumers. This report gives you a horizontal view of the luxury market, recognizing that luxury marketers compete not just with companies within their vertical product niche, but across all luxury categories as well.

Within each category of luxury, the key drivers for purchase are studied, such as role of luxury brand in purchase decision; the influence of sales price on purchase; where the shopper bought their last luxury; why they bought luxuries; whether their luxury purchases were made a gifts; and other motivational factors.

This report doesn’t stop with the data — It pushes further to help marketers and retailers put the information to use

Translates the data into information that marketing executives can use to make critical strategic decisions.  This market research report makes the research data and findings accessible and useable. It provides marketers with three powerful perspectives: “The What”, “So What” and “Now What.”

This report is filled with advice and guidance for luxury marketers to take action on the research findings revealed.

Special feature: Find out which of the five different types of luxury consumers are your best customers

A special feature in Unity Marketing’s Personal Luxury Report USA is a psychographic profile of five key types of luxury consumers. These include:

• X-Fluents (Extremely Affluent) who spend the most on luxury and are most highly invested in luxury living;
• Butterflies, the most highly evolved luxury consumers who have emerged from their luxury cocoons with a passion to reconnect with the outside world. Powered by a search for meaning and new experiences, the butterflies have the least materialistic orientation among the segments, yet they spend nearly as much as the X-Fluents on luxury;
• Luxury Cocooners who are focused on hearth and home. They spend most of their luxury budgets on home-related purchases;
• Aspirers, those luxury consumers who have not yet achieved the level of luxury to which they aspire. They are highly attuned to brands and believe luxury is best expressed in what they buy and what they own.
• Temperate Pragmatist a newly emerged luxury consumer who is not all that involved in the luxury lifestyle. As their name implies, they are careful spenders and not given to luxury indulgence.