Consumer Lifestyle Matters: Evidence from Gray Markets in China

Consumers are at the central point of marketing. However, while existential research is devoted to understanding gray market, little attention is given to the consumer’s view of gray market. This study attempts to take the perspective of consumers to address the gray market issue. Lifestyles of the target customers of trademark holders are proposed for trademark holders to retain existing customers while simultaneously attracting new customers from the gray market. We perform Cluster analysis to identify different customer groups by using “lifestyle” as a market segmentation variable. ANOVA, Scheffe test and regression analyses are then employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Analytical results reveal that the different customer groups exhibit particular lifestyle features, different perceptions of gray product quality as well as different purchase intentions.