Critical success factors for luxury fashion brands in emerging markets: Insights from a qualitative study

Creating and maintaining a successful luxury brand has many challenges. In emerging markets like India, brands face additional challenges due to the smaller size of the market as well as consumer’s general preference for value over luxury. Based on a qualitative approach, the study aims to empirically develop an analytical framework of the critical success factors (CSFs) for luxury brands keeping in mind the uniqueness of the emerging markets. This study involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with 18 senior managers with varying experience in luxury fashion industry, supported by secondary research such as internal documents and media reports. The study identifies 10 interrelated CSFs, which are categorized into two broad categories, i.e., Core CSFs and Augmentative CSFs. Based on consumer maturity and brand status, four types of consumption patterns (aspirational, conspicuous, experiential, and heritage) for luxury brands are also identified. Managers can use our CSF framework along with the consumption pattern matrix for efficient luxury brand management.