Bài báo nghiên cứu khoa học đạt chuẩn SCOPUS ISI uy rín nói về sự ảnh hưởng của phương tiện truyền thông xã hội WOM tác động lên ý định mua sắm thương hiệu xa xỉ của người tiêu dùng. This research develops a conceptualized model that illuminates the role of luxury perceptions in explaining consumer engagement in social media WOM and luxury purchase intention. It also explores the moderating effects of consumer demographic characteristics and perceived social status. The proposed model is validated by using SEM in AMOS against 282 samples, and chisquare difference test is applied to test the moderating effects. The findings demonstrate that social media WOM positively influences consumer luxury purchase intention. Perceived quality highly influences functional and social value, and social media WOM is strongly influenced by personal and functional value. This research 1) highlights the powerful role of social media WOM in enhancing luxury brands purchase intention, 2) extends current body of knowledge of the social media WOM and its focal antecedents, and 3) shows how consumer characteristics (e.g., age, gender, income, education, perceived social status) are important for developing customized marketing strategy to promote luxury brands on SNS. Overall, this study helps firms to understand which aspect of luxury brands to be emphasized to initiate consumers into social media WOM, which in turn, influences purchase intention.
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 58 (2021) 102272 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser A study of antecedents and outcomes of social media WOM towards luxury brand purchase intention Jungkun Park a, Hyowon Hyun a, *, Toulany Thavisay b a b School of Business, Hanyang University, 222 Wangshimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea Faculty of Economics and Business Management, National University of Laos (NUoL), Po Box 7322, Vientiane, Laos A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Keywords: Luxury product Perceived quality Perceived value Social media WOM Consumer characteristics This research develops a conceptualized model that illuminates the role of luxury perceptions in explaining consumer engagement in social media WOM and luxury purchase intention It also explores the moderating effects of consumer demographic characteristics and perceived social status The proposed model is validated by using SEM in AMOS against 282 samples, and chi-square difference test is applied to test the moderating effects The findings demonstrate that social media WOM positively influences consumer luxury purchase intention Perceived quality highly influences functional and social value, and social media WOM is strongly influenced by personal and functional value This research 1) highlights the powerful role of social media WOM in enhancing luxury brands purchase intention, 2) extends current body of knowledge of the social media WOM and its focal antecedents, and 3) shows how consumer characteristics (e.g., age, gender, income, education, perceived social status) are important for developing customized marketing strategy to promote luxury brands on SNS Overall, this study helps firms to understand which aspect of luxury brands to be emphasized to initiate consumers into social media WOM, which in turn, influences purchase intention Introduction The diffusion of social media has emerged over the last decade as the principle communication channels of marketing activities (Rialti et al., 2017) It is the Internet-based applications which are characterized by accessibility, bidirectionality (e.g two-way communication), and interoperability (e.g., exchanging of information) (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010) By using social media, luxury firms can reach and initiate their customers into marketing activities of luxury brands in social commu nities (Gallaugher and Ransbotham, 2010) For instance, Louis Vuitton posts their fashion shows on its Facebook page (Kapferer, 2012), which creates different opportunities for brand-related users to entertain, interact, and share information In addition, according to Deloitte (2017), the sales growth of Est´ee Lauder is attributed by implementing social media approach, and luxury firms could optimize the benefits of such platform to increase its users by customizing pictures, videos, and design to meet their personalities (Bazi et al., 2020) (Figs and 2) Information shared by consumers in social media sites is widely known to influence and form consumer attitudes and behavioral in tentions For instance, word-of-mouth (WOM) over social media is known as electronic WOM (Yang, 2017) It is a form of communication that has been recognized to be one of major influential information sources on social media sites (Jalilvand and Samiei, 2012) Consumers who rely on social media need information and opinions from others to increase their awareness of a certain brand as much as they enjoy sharing their own experiences of luxury brands with their peers This form of communication provides credibility and trustworthiness (May zlin, 2006), leading to an opportunity to evaluate brand value and avoid misunderstanding of brands In the era of social media boom, firms being on social platforms is crucial, and it is a part of online marketing strategies (Sokolova and Kefi, 2020) The advent of social media pro vides marketers and consumers with various social platforms, and they are essential resources of products and services Instagram for, instance, is one of them that has been used recently by luxury brands to inspire their consumers As such, Instagram has more than billion users (Intagram, 2019) sharing, tagging, using hashtags, and commenting on visual contents (e.g., images, videos, gifs) (Vinerean and Oprena, 2019) As this platform provides more visual extensions with textual descrip tion (Sokolova and Kefi, 2020), it is considered as more appropriate for luxury fashion brands, and it appeals to luxury consumers who are highly tech-savvy and spend more time using this site (Instagram, 2017) Consequently, using the content they see on Instagram influences their * Corresponding author E-mail addresses: viroid2007@gmail.com (J Park), hhwony326@gmail.com (H Hyun), thavisay.toulany@gmail.com (T Thavisay) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102272 Received 19 March 2020; Received in revised form 29 June 2020; Accepted 31 July 2020 Available online 10 September 2020 0969-6989/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved J Park et al Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 58 (2021) 102272 ´ et al., 2018) future behavioral intention and luxury shopping (Casalo Moreover, WOM in social media is the most persuasive information sources on the Web (Abubakar and Ilkan, 2016) that have led to sig ´mez-Sua ´rez et al., 2017) It nificant changes in consumer behaviors (Go helps consumers to look for information about products and brands, find comparisons, and learn about other consumers’ usage experiences with a particular brand, product, and service, so that they are able to finalize their purchasing decision confidently (Pentina et al., 2015) Consumers in the digital age use their profile pages to post recom mendations and opinions about a product or brand (Kudeshia and Kumar, 2017), which creates consumer’s generated contents Product reviews and recommendations that users post on social media have proved to be a key factor in finalizing consumer’s purchasing decision (e.g., Farzin and Fattahi, 2018) since it influences a decision making of their friends and acquaintances in their social communities, and other potential consumers who see the shared posts However, previous studies examining consumer purchase intention as a consequence of WOM in social media have rarely conducted a research in luxury context (Alhidari et al., 2015; Kudeshia and Kumar, 2017; Tien et al., 2018), and vice versa (Nwankwo et al., 2014; Park et al., 2018) Therefore, as WOM is an important factor in shaping consumers purchase decision (Fariz and Fattahi, 2018), this study aims to find out whether WOM in social media would have an influence on luxury brand buying decision Understanding key antecedents of social media WOM in luxury context is considerably important because consumer perceptions toward luxury including perceived quality and perceived value is a subjective concept (Phau and Prendergast, 2000) that influences behavioral intention towards luxury brands It is within this context; the present study sets to find out the key determinants involved in consumer engagement in social media WOM behavior and its possible consequences Consumer demographic characteristics and perceived social status could play an important role in understanding individual consumers Particularly, many aspects of consumer characteristics such as age, gender, income, and education might impact behavioral intentions and cannot be ignored This implies that consumption of luxury goods cannot be well understood without a consideration of consumers of luxury and their characteristics (Ghosh and Vashney, 2013) Marketers require this information as key input to create specific consumer seg ments (Rialti et al., 2017) In consistent with prior knowledge, this study aims to show how differences of consumer demographic characteristics and their perceived social status are related to antecedents of social media WOM and their engagement, and luxury purchase intention Accordingly, the objective of this study is threefold: to examine the effect of luxury perceptions, including perceived quality, social, per sonal, and function value on social media WOM; to examine the influ ence of social media WOM on luxury purchase intention; and to examine the moderating effects of consumer demographic characteristics (e.g age, gender, income, and education) and perceived social status on the relationships between perceptions of luxury, social media WOM, and purchase intention This current study expects to provide several contributions to liter atures on consumer engagement in electronic WOM and luxury brand shopping First, the results provide a new theoretical model regarding the effect of key luxury perceptions (i.e., perceived quality, social value, personal value, and functional value) attribute on social media WOM engagement Second, this research extends the relationship between electronic WOM engagement and luxury brand shopping by specifically examining the role of active consumers in social media WOM with specific regard to their luxury purchase intention Literature review and hypothesis development 2.1 Luxury brands and consumer engagement in social media Luxury brands can refer to attributes pertaining to premium image, quality, pleasurable purchase and consumption experiences that reflect the buyers’ perceived luxury after purchasing (Keller, 2009) Phau and Prendergast (2000) view luxury brands according to exclusivity, brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty To our understanding, luxury is the combination of quality and value which is the outcome of core qualities that communicate to the target consumers Luxury firms are now engaging in social media, which is a two-way communication platform allowing consumers to interact with brands, share information and opinions with other social community’s mem bers, and build a relationship with brands (Kim and Ko, 2010) Luxury brands are generally perceived as high price and believed to provide rare attributes including both superb quality and exclusive function With advanced technology, exclusivity and uniqueness can be communicated to consumers on social media sites (Miller et al., 2009) Social media sites including Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest are being used widely by luxury brands (Chu et al., 2013; Phan, 2011) For instance, Louis Vuitton has its Facebook page where social media users are able to access to various contents like video clips, pictures, text, links, and stories Such contents are the stimuli that create consumer engagement in social media (Dhaoui, 2014; Chu et al., 2019) Consumer engagement is the interaction between consumers and brands and other community’s members, which creates two-way communication Fig Conceptual framework of luxury brand purchase intention and social media WOM J Park et al Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 58 (2021) 102272 experiences (Brodie et al., 2013) By the way, consumer engagement in social media can be understood as interactions The interactions include sharing, commenting, reproducing, and liking the contents (Dhaoui, 2014; Martín-Consuegra et al., 2018) Such WOM in social media creates a capital of opinions and shapes consumers’ attitude and behaviors including purchase intention (Jin, 2012; Chu and Kamal, 2011) WOM in social media as the outcome of consumer engagement (i.e., a consumer creates and shares information to other social media users) has gained important role in understanding purchase intention towards luxury goods Since social media enables consumers to create and access to various types of information (e.g., reviews, recommendations, pic tures) makes purchasing decision more dependent on social media WOM (King et al., 2014; Park and Kim, 2009) In the past, consumers used to turn to marketers and friends for information However, social media WOM has become powerful source of information in the present days (Alhidari et al., 2015) because of the advanced technologies that enable consumers to share and obtain information at a time and place (Nam et al., 2019) Furthermore, individuals can visit multiple review sites to seek product and service information which has a clear negative or positive valence (King et al., 2014), which is viewed as more trustworthy and honest than the one obtained through firms’ websites and adver tisements (Nam et al., 2019) Certain consumer profiles are not being considered to affirm that WOM social media has become a powerful source of information today in this present study However, as cited in the study of Nam et al (2019), 91% of consumers search for the infor mation from blogs, read product reviews, or visit other online platforms for user-generated contents prior to purchasing goods (Brightlocal, 2016) With the advent of digital information and communication tech nology, luxury brands are able to showcase particular attributes of luxury to social media users on social media sites Attributes such as quality, rarity, and personality are presented and communicated by using marketing communications of luxury brands (Dhaoui, 2014) For instance, within this context, quality attributes are communicated through advertising and marketing activity, such as public relations, celebrities, stories, and influences are great potential communication tools to communicate luxury attributes to consumers (Chu et al., 2019) Researchers suggest that marketer’s generated content may not be a reliable source of information compared to consumer’s generated con tent as it is generated by actual experiences (e.g., exchanging informa tion, judgments, reviews, recommendations, and opinions) since it makes them feel confident in understanding about products and brands (Chu and Kim, 2011; Huang et al., 2012) As such result, social media users get involved in social media activities to discuss about quality and value of luxury brands on social media Despite the fact that adopting social media worries the luxury firms that the luxury status, appeals of exclusivity, and uniqueness would be destroyed by democratizing nature of social media (Dauriz et al., 2014), at the present, luxury brands are now increasingly adopting social media technologies in retailing landscape (Kwon et al., 2017) As stated by Pentina et al (2018), social media produces positive outcomes Further suggested by other scholars, such platforms strengthen the relationship between firms and consumers (Kim and Ko, 2012) and brand engage ment (Dhaoui, 2014) Engaging in social media thus enables users to voice their perceived quality of products by creating a product review or rating (Shanahan et al., 2019) Also, limiting social media feed with top-quality visual content (photos and video clips) could boost the perception of exclusivity and premium quality of luxury branded products (Pentina et al., 2018) 2.2 Social media WOM and its antecedents Several recent studies have identified the influential factors that could draw consumer’s engagement in electronic WOM (See-To and Ho, 2014; An et al., 2019; Liu and Lee, 2016) They show that the ante cedents explain the outcome of a solid relationship between consumers and product, brand, and service As such result, they create potential responses and shape consumer’s perceptions towards goods and ser vices, and thus enables the customer to voice his/her opinions and give recommendations to other customers (Ismail and Spinelli, 2012) Social media WOM is a factor that influences consumers in different stages of purchasing-decision process (Mishra and Satish, 2016) Therefore, recent literature on electronic WOM emphasizes that study ing of the drivers of social media WOM can help researchers and prac titioners gain deeper understanding of why and how they influence (An et al., 2019) For instance, Kudeshia and Kumar (2016) state that atti tude towards a brand acts as an important predictor of social electronic WOM because it is a result of the evaluation of products (e.g., favorable or unfavorable attitude toward product, brand, and service), and con sumers tend to write online reviews based on their assessment of brand-related stimuli Fariz and Fattahi (2018) propose a conceptual framework explaining the drivers of consumer engagement in social media WOM They find that, trust, informational influence, sense of belonging, altruism, moral obligation, and knowledge self-efficacy are the positive drivers of social media WOM Engaging in electronic WOM is conceptualized around the construct of consumer engagement Fig Structural model of luxury brand purchase intention and social media WOM Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 J Park et al Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 58 (2021) 102272 Consumer engagement explains motivation and cognitive response to wards brand (Baldus et al., 2015) and online WOM (i.e., liking and/or commenting) (Simon et al., 2013) However, few of the exiting studies have examined its effect in online luxury brands (Vinerean and Oper eana, 2019) Other researchers (e.g., Alhidari et al., 2015) conceptualize that engagement in social networking site (SNS) depends on the level of importance, time, and effort a user gives to SNS Thus, they rely on the Elaboration Likelihood Model to understand electronic WOM partici pation by incorporating belief in self-reliance, SNS involvement, and SNS risk-taking as the important antecedents Wang et al (2016) pro pose a research framework grounded in the social capital theory and self-determination theory (SDT) to explain consumers engaging in electronic WOM on social networks This study believes that the creation of shared information (i.e., social capital) content and motivations of consumers are the key drivers to understand social media WOM be haviors Similarly, Cheung and Lee (2012) show that consumer intention to engage in WOM on social media is influenced by three motivational factors such as egoistic, collective, and altruistic The results of aforesaid studies may not lead to clear understanding of social media WOM in luxury setting since WOM behavior could be dependent on industry (Harrison-Walker, 2001; Yen and Tang, 2019) The research is missing in the literature on the antecedents related to luxury perceptions and social media WOM behavior and its subsequent impact on purchase intention of luxury brands Cheung and Lee (2012) content that consumer’s intention to engage in social media WOM is difficult to explain as a research on this topic is still limited To address the issue, this study departs from most electronic WOM studies (e.g., Klein et al., 2016; Ismail and Spinelli, 2012; Liu and Lee, 2016; Chang et al., 2016) in that perceived quality, social, personal, and functional value of luxury are proposed as potential antecedents that affect social media WOM The present study identifies four selective perceptions of luxury because consumers’ social media WOM is associated with luxury brands (Godey et al., 2016; Pentina et al., 2018) Particularly, perceived quality is one of the salient dimensions of perceived brand leadership (Chang et al., 2016; Chang and Ko, 2014) that reflects the key aspects of luxury (Tynan et al., 2010) Functional, personal, and social value are key di mensions of luxury value perceptions (Wiedmann et al., 2009) Con sumer value perception is a subjective concept (Kortge and Okonkwo, 1993), and it tends to affect the intention to share the information and promote value of product or service when it accomplishes consumers’ desires Based on the aforementioned understanding, this research pre dicts that perceived quality, functional, personal, and social value are positively associated with social media WOM of luxury brands In other words, consumers develop further relationship with luxury brands by recommending and sharing the product-related information obtained from various sources with their peers on SNS in the forms of review, recommend, comment on luxury brands made by consumers among two standards of product quality (1) sub jective quality (quality as perceived by the consumer) and (2) objective quality (Molina and Munuera-Aleman, 2009) The judgment made of quality is likely to be difficult due to its characteristics, which are intangible (Joung et al., 2016) Consumers have to rely on relevant in formation or personal experiences in order to obtain perceived product quality, which also plays a mediating role between extrinsic cues and perceived customer value quality (Tsiotsou, 2006) Consumer perceived quality of luxury brands is shaped by the pro cess of perceptions involved in the process of decision making Great perceived quality happens as a result of consumer recognition of dif ferentiation and superiority of the brand relative to competitors’ brands; which can influence their purchase decisions and may drive them to choose one brand over a competing one (Ngoma and Ntale, 2015) Furthermore, perceived quality also provides value to consumers by providing them with a reason to buy and by differentiating the brand against competing brands (Asshidin et al., 2016) These researchers suggest that value of products or services which consumers search for are considerably influenced by perceived quality and it is fair to imply that the overall value perceptions are its outcomes Joung et al (2016) suggest that perceived quality has a significant effect on perceived value and Kayaman and Arasli (2007); Liu et al (2014) explain that perceived quality is one important factor that influences consumer preference resulting from the comparison of consumer’s intended purpose with the actual performance (Erdogmus and Bü;deyri-Turan, 2012) Based on previous observations, it is assumed that consumers weight value of luxury items on social, personal, and functional attributes Thus, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1 Perceived quality of luxury brand positively influences social value H2 Perceived quality of luxury brand positively influences personal value H3 Perceived quality of luxury brand positively influences functional value 2.4 Perceived value and social media WOM From an economic standpoint, consumers consider perceived value in relation to the price they are willing to pay for goods or services as much as the value they receive in return as the offerings In psycho logical perspective, it is rather interpreted in relation to cognitive and affective issues that impact purchasing decisions and brand selection (Gallarza et al., 2011) Consumers buy luxury brands for the exchange of value that is compatible to the amount spent or for the value that sat isfies their needs and wants (Kuo et al., 2009) This implies that cus tomer’s perceived value yields broad perspectives, such as money, quality, benefit, and social psychology Brennan and Henneberg (2008) emphasizes that there is no consensus or clarity about perceived value This current study, thus, argues that consumers perceive value of goods and services differently depending on the individuals and number of factors pertaining to the actual purpose of luxury consumptions Consumers usually look for value that either satisfies their needs and wants or quality that provides tangible and intangible benefits They are also likely to evaluate the overall luxury value in relation to financial, functional, and social dimensions which truly reflect the individual’s luxury value perception (Hennigs et al., 2013) Liao and Wang (2009) evaluate the individual dimension of value focusing on consumers’ personal orientation towards luxury consumption to deal with personal issues, such as materialism (Bao et al., 2003; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982; Vigneron and Johnson, 2004), or hedonism self-identity Social value dimensions, such as conspicuousness and prestige value, which are the acquirement of perceived utility of goods or services that the individuals recognize within the social groups, are the driving force of luxury brands consumption and have a significant tendency towards 2.3 Perceived quality and perceived value of luxury Perceived quality refers to a consumer evaluating overall excellence of a brand based on intrinsic and extrinsic cues (Asshidin et al., 2016) In a luxury context, for instance, luxury brands consumers explain the criteria as materials, components, physical performance, workmanship, and durability as quality Specifically, the fabric does not shrink after washing or wearing, and the color does not fade reflect the luxury brands’ premium quality (Mrad et al., 2020) Some of these criteria including fabric, color, workmanship, and durability refer to the attri butes of the products (Abraham-Murali and Littrell, 1995; Zhang et al., 2002; Silverman, 1999) Thus, this study justifies perceived quality at tributes as tangible and intangible (Keller and McGill, 1994) charac teristics such as materials, components, physical performance, workmanship, and durability Quality is a consequence of the judgment of a product or service J Park et al Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 58 (2021) 102272 the brand selections (Brinberg and Plimpton, 1986; Liu and Hu, 2012) Previous researchers show that perceived value leads to behavioral in tentions For instance, Hartline and Jones (1996); Matos and Rossi (2008); Mayr and Zins (2012) demonstrate that perceived value signif icantly influences WOM engagement However, the study is not con ducted in a luxury context To date, the relationship between perceived value and WOM has been rarely explored in luxury study To extend the previous findings, this study proposes that perceived value is expected to indicate positive outcome leading to engagement of social media WOM This relationship is based on the concept of consumer perceived value Consumer interprets perceived value on the basis of the benefits received from consuming products and services that meet their needs and requirements (Johnston and Kong, 2011) When this occurs, con sumers feel that it is important to recommend good value that they have received to others in their social groups (McKee et al., 2006) Thus, it is assumed that consumers might engage in social media and offer WOM recommendations based on the value (i.e., social, personal, functional) they gain The following hypotheses are thus formulated: H4 consumers For instance, the heaviest consumers of luxury goods are the wealthiest ones (Husic and Cicic, 2009) and middle-income group (Zhan and He, 2012) Based on these reports, it is assumed that consumers with different income levels might differ in perceptions towards luxury values (i.e., social value, personal value, and functional value) and behaviors (i e., social media WOM engagement) Hassan et al (2015) in their study suggest that higher income group perceives global luxury brands to be more luxurious than local luxury brands compared to those with lower income This could imply that higher income consumers are more brand loyal and seek the best quality over the price, while its counterpart looks for the best price for a given quality, less brand prominence, and more intrinsic luxury cues (Hassan et al., 2015) Malc et al (2016) further state that different income levels result in different perceptions of price fairness Thus, this could be concluded that difference in income leads to the difference in luxury perceptions In addition to income, educational level has an impact on perceptions and luxury purchase intention The attributes of luxury brands are responded differently by consumers with different educational backgrounds (e.g., graduate, undergraduate, and postgraduate), which differentiates behavioral intentions (Srinivasan, 2015) This could be because highly educated consumers might feel that owning luxury brands adds to their status in a social group, they also might have more experiences and understanding of luxury goods Thus, to address an issue in the literature and extend prior observations, the following hypotheses are proposed: Consumer’s social value is likely to influence social media WOM H5 Consumer’s personal value is likely to influence social media WOM H6 Consumer’s functional value is likely to influence social media WOM H8 Consumer demographic characteristics (e.g age, gender, educa tion, income) will moderate the relationship between (a) social value; (b) personal value; (c) functional value and social media WOM 2.5 Social media WOM and purchase intention WOM in social media sites is a new form of digital communication playing an important role in exchanging and sharing information among social media users Many consumers rely on luxury experiences shared by others through social media across multiple platforms which enhance both brand evaluation and purchase intention (Moran et al., 2014) In the digital era, the main challenge for firms is the rise of the consumer interaction on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube These plat forms allow individuals to communicate and share their luxury brands experiences on multiple channels to express themselves through posts, comments, and luxury brand recommendation to their social networking groups With advanced development of social media, users can have a live conversation with other friends These users may appear to play a role of “self-enhancement” or “opinion leader,” in sharing and spreading knowledge of luxury brands to help others who will buy such brand in the future (Wojnicki and Godes, 2008) Jalilvand and Samiei (2012) show that WOM has a positive direct impact on purchase intention However, this finding is limited to automobile industry Thus, it is worthwhile to take a look at the effect of social media WOM on luxury purchase intention H9 Consumer demographic characteristics (e.g age, gender, educa tion, income) will moderate the relationship between social media WOM and luxury purchase intention 2.7 Moderating effect of perceived social status Consumption of luxury brands is believed to provide social status because luxury brands emphasize status and image They also help in dividual consumers define luxury through conspicuous, unique, social, hedonic as well as quality values (Liu et al., 2012) According to Eastman et al (1999, p 43), social status is the desire for social status leads to status consumption, which is defined as “the motivational process by which individuals strive to improve their social standing through con spicuous consumption of consumer products that confer or symbolize status for both individuals and surrounding others.” In this perspective, luxury brands that provide brand prestige and value would respond to the consumers who seek to improve their status through high product positioning that is associated with the luxury brands (Steenkamp et al., 2003;Ahn et al., 2018; Hwang and Han, 2014) So, when people have a status, which means that they have a certain position in society, they may be jealous of someone else and others may be jealous of them (Phau and Teah, 2009) In line with this argument, it is theorized that con sumption of luxury brands can reflect the owner as having a social status (Chan et al., 2015) Those who perceive higher social status tend to be more credible and reliable (Dommer and Swaminathan, 2013) There fore, the individuals with higher perceived social status might possess higher knowledge and confidence about luxury brands that emphasize the needs to engage in social media WOM than those with lower perceived social status When engaging in electronic WOM, Zhang et al (2020) report that WOM receiver is likely to be convinced by electronic WOM reviews from the senders with high social status This could be implied that those who engage in WOM to share information about products and services, stores, and companies might be more confident with luxury brands and tend to have convincing power Therefore, this study argues that perceived social status may play a moderating role in perceived value, social media WOM, and purchase intention link Spe cifically, if social media WOM senders try to convey one’s perceived social status, they are more likely to engage in social media WOM and H7 Social media WOM will positively influence luxury purchase intention 2.6 Moderating effect of consumer demographic characteristics Prior research finds significant moderating effects of consumer de mographic characteristics (Morris et al., 2005; Venkates et al., 2003) Stokburger-Sauer and Teichmann (2013) explore a role of gender dif ferences in luxury brand consumption Recent important study con ducted by Schade et al (2016) compares age differences of attitude and luxury consumption However, the previous studies have not examined the moderating effect of income and education Due to such limitation, this provides little help in theorizing the moderating effect of income and education in the paths between luxury value and social media WOM engagement Nevertheless, it is believed that these variables differen tiate consumer perception and consumption of luxury brands Higher income consumers are more comfortable with selecting brands and spending more for expensive goods and services than lower income J Park et al Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 58 (2021) 102272 and period of usage In total, the result revealed that there were 282 useable responses The descriptive statistics demonstrate that the sample was familiar with social media The top SNSs they were a member of were Facebook (46.9%), Instagram (27.2%), and Pinterest (11.6%) They also report the actual usage periods between one to five years The respondents appear to be almost equal between female 55% and male 45% For age, 76.2% were in their twenties and thirties, 22.7% were in their forties and above With regard to education, 19.9% had an Associate degree or below, and 80.1% had a bachelor’s degree or higher Regarding average annual income levels, 35.5% had incomes less than $65,000, while 30.9% earned between $65,000 and $100,000, only 8% of incomes were more than $100,000 per year (See Table 1) purchase luxury items to elicit favorable views from others Further more, an individual may desire to be associated with luxury products or services to enhance their own social standing (i.e., perceived social status) As such, luxury is admired However, perceived status level (either low or high) depends on how an individual compare with others except luxury This means that differences in perceived social status depends on how one’s beliefs about the importance of buying or having luxury items since social status is a subjective judgment, and its level is not constant (Lo, 2008) Accordingly, this study believes that con sumer’s beliefs about purchasing or owning luxury items to be a part of high social class that improves his/her social standing varies from per son to person Thus, it is posited that: H10 Perceived social status will positively moderate the relationship between (a) social value; (b) personal value; (c) functional value and social media WOM Data analysis and results H11 Perceived social status will positively moderate the relationship between social media WOM and luxury purchase intention 4.1 Validity and reliability test Exploratory factory analysis (EFA) was chosen to validate the mea surement scales prior to conducting further analysis Kai ser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) index and Bartlett’s test of sphericity showed that the sample size adequacy index (0.915) was sufficient to carry out the factor analysis (Hair et al., 2015) The results showed that the items loaded on the respective factors with scores ranging from 0.61 to 0.87 except one item measuring luxury purchase intention had a cross-loading with low scores (0.32) thereby it was required to be deleted from the scales, and others were retained Cronbach’s Alpha (α) for the internal consistency of each variable was conducted and all constructs satisfied levels of reliability with scores ranging from 0.89 to 0.77 Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results for overall of goodness-of-fit (χ 236 = 641.68), with a significant level at (p < 0.000) and the standards of fit indices (GFI = 0.87; AGFI = 84; RMR = 0.07; CFI Research methodology 3.1 Measurement Each construct in the current study is adopted from the previous research and measured by using a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree and = strongly agree) More specifically, most of the mea surement items have been previously validated However, specific wording was modified based on the experts’ opinions to fit the luxury context To measure the perceived quality, six items measuring this construct are adopted from Dodds et al (1991) and a total of sixteen items measuring multi-dimensions of perceived value come from Shukla (2012) Social media WOM items are adopted from Arenas-Gaitan et al (2013) with mild modification to fit the purpose of the study The items measuring perceived social status are taken from Fah et al (2011) and Hung et al (2011) for the items measuring purchase intention The self-administered questionnaire is made simple and understandable by having only two main sections; the main study measurement is the first section and respondent’s demographics and overall SNS-related ques tions is the second (See Table 2) Table Respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics variable Group Frequency Percent Age