Consumers and Prestige

[dominiquematthews]

Many consumers shop with the intention of gaining prestige by spending lots of money. Low prices are not always a positive thing for everyone. I've noticed that some people will buy things simply to talk about it or just for the purpose of showing off. For example, buying an expensive piece of art for a living room wall does not have much utilitarian value. You can't do much with it besides hang it and look at it. It does however have hedonic value. There are many people who get pleasure from this type of consumption. The art makes them happy, and they get to brag about how much they spent on it. To many consumers, prestige is very important. The majority of consumers love sales and low prices because money stretches further this way. There are also many consumers who prefer to spend lots of money on just one item in exchange for the prestige they will gain in doing so. Most of us would think that if expensive designer items started lowering their prices, then demand would increase for those products. This may not be true because there are many people that gain satisfaction from being able to afford certain designer brands. If the prices were marked down, they would no longer be getting the status and prestige that they desire buy spending lots of money.