The Determinants of Repeat Purchase Intention for Luxury Brands among Generation Y Consumers in Malaysia

Repeat purchasing has now become a critical factor for marketers, especially in the luxury goods market. Repeat purchasing not only saves costs (as opposed to attracting new customers), but increases sales as well. Both past and current researchers have been keen in investigating what drives consumers to repeat their purchase. The purpose of this academic research is to examine the relationship between Hedonic Value (HV), Satisfaction (S), Consumer Inertia (CI) and Product Attribute (PA) with the Repeat Purchase Intention (RPI) for luxury brands among Generation Y consumers in Malaysia. As such, eight luxury brands have been selected to investigate the consumer behaviour of consumers in Malaysia, in relation to the repeat purchase intention. This is a quantitative study that collected data from 134 respondents. Findings reveal that Hedonic Value and Satisfaction have positive and significant correlation with Repeat Purchase Intention, with Satisfaction being the strongest predictor of Repeat Purchase Intention. The findings can be used by marketers in Malaysia to aid them in creating marketing strategies to maintain their current customer base, as well as attract new customers to purchase their luxury brands within their target market. This study can also motivate current researchers to further investigate in the field of luxury brands, in an attempt to bridge the gap between luxury brands and Repeat Purchase Intention.


Introduction
The term luxury has a broad meaning and its definition varies over time.As explained by David & Chiari (2008), luxury was defined in the past as anything that fell outside the basic human necessities and was usually afforded by the rich.The authors further argue that now the luxurious need is not only linked to the consumers' psychological desires, but now evolving with consumer's dynamic cultural changes as well.Lipovetsly (2007, pp. 30-35) has separated ideological luxury from material luxury, where the former is linked with sacred things such as altruism, intellectual and morality, and the latter shaping reality as a result of satisfaction arising from individualistic egocentric desires.
Today's luxury ranges from fashion, jewellery, leather, cosmetics, wines, hospitality to air and automobile brands (Okonkwo, 2009).Luxury, although being mostly an intangible consumption experience, has dramatically transitioned to a symbol of global prestige and usually represents 'unique' quality, design, fashion and status (Juggessur & Cohen, 2009;Phau & Prendergast, 2000a, cited in Miller & Mills, 2012).Lipovetsky (2007, pp.69-74) says that although the luxury market seems to be dominated by female consumers, the market will subsequently balance itself to the male luxury counterparts.
The consumption of luxury brands is no longer limited to the rich western and developed countries.A market study done by D' Arpizio et al. (2015) found that Chinese consumers played a key part in global luxury spending growth, which account for 31% worldwide spending, followed by American and European consumers at 24% and 18% respectively.A similar study done by the same authors in 2016 further clarifies that there is a strong growing trend in luxury goods in countries like China, particularly the growing demand in luxury cars, hospitality and beauty luxury goods.

Repeat Purchase Intention
A consumer typically decides to undergo a repeat purchase when he/she is normally satisfied with the brand and is in the last stage of post purchase behaviour of the consumer buying process (Kotler & Armstrong, 2016).The consumer reviews the brand's experience he/she had during the product's or service's use.Therefore, repeat purchase intention actually takes place in the buyer's 'black box' when the consumer has decided whether to purchase the same brand or not.However, Jones & Sasser (1995) argue that consumers should possess both high satisfaction and loyalty towards the brand, in order to become the brand's loyalist or apostle.Therefore, repeat purchase intention can serve as a predictor for the actual purchase behaviour.Companies are now more interested in maintaining customer' repeat purchase because it will not only lead to sustained competitive advantage, but it will help increase profitability against fierce competition whilst decreasing new costs in attracting new consumers as well (Kuo, Hu, & Yang, 2013;Reichheld & Sasser, 1990).For example, according to Reichheld & Sasser (1990), a company's profits could increase by 25% to 85% with a mere 5% increase in consumer retention.On the contrary, the same company can incur 5 times more cost in attracting new consumers.
Researchers have studied many factors that affect repeat purchase intention (Table 1).As stated below, some of the variables include Convenience, Hedonic Value, Perceived Risk, Customer Satisfaction, Consumer Inertia, Positive word-of-mouth, Value, Trust, Habit, Familiarity, Product Attribute, Luxury Value, and Social Influence.These studies were carried out on different samples, topics and locations, and the influences varied among different papers.For example, research by Kuo, Hu & Yang (2013) reveals that consumer inertia has more influence than satisfaction among female online shoppers for repeat purchase, which is contrary to Jones & Sasser (1995)'s argument that consumers generally have high satisfaction and loyalty when they intend to repeat purchase.Since this research focusses on the determinants of hedonic value, satisfaction, consumer inertia and product attribute on the repeat purchase intention of luxury brands, the following sections will provide a literature review of Hedonic Value, Satisfaction, Consumer Inertia and Product Attributes.

Product Attribute
Product Attribute(s) can be a set of characteristics that define one particular brand, and consumers are able to recall the particular brand based on the product's attribute(s), thereby defining a consumer's consumption experience (Costley & Bruks, 1992;Smith & Deppa, 2009).The attributes of any brand can also be seen as 'dimensions of brand personalities', for example, Aaker (1997) defined the 5 brand personalities as Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophisticated and Ruggedness.Consumers also tend to evaluate their brand's experience with these brand personalities in order to adopt a repeat purchase intention.Aaker (1997) further explained that each brand dimension has correlated with some brand personalities: Sincerity dimension correlates with attributes of honesty, cheerfulness, wholesomeness and down-to-earth personalities.Excitement dimension correlates with a brand's attribute representing imagination, spirited, daring, and up-to-date personalities.Similarly, Competence correlates with reliability, success, and intelligence, while Ruggedness personality correlates with attributes like a brand being outdoorsy and tough.Furthermore, Aaker's brand testing samples included luxury hotels and clothing.However, these dimensions are only used for literature review for better understanding of past researches and its relation with repeat purchase intention.
According to Anderson & Mittal (2000), there is a dependent link between how well the product attributes perform against customer satisfaction, thereby enhancing customer experience and likely leading to a repeat purchase.Product attributes are one of the important element used by consumers to evaluate their product of choice (Zhang et al., 2002).This evaluation is supported by Tom et al. (1987)'s research in which product attributes are used as a basis of evaluation regarding purchase intention.Product Attribute has mostly been an important indicator for a consumer's purchase intention.Studies like Wee, Ta & Cheok (1995) find that Product Attributes affect consumer purchase intention, whereas Goh et al. (2016) find that product attribute is among positive influencers of repeat purchase intention.Some other studies done on product attributes in various contexts include research done by Huber, Herrmann & Morgan (2001); Martin (1998); Min, Overby & Im (2012); Rahman, Zhu & Liu (2008).Therefore, different product attribute impacts differently in the consumer's mind, but it is overall affecting the repeat purchase in different contexts.

Consumer Inertia
In a nutshell, consumer's inertia is an assumption that many consumers are inclined to stick to the same brand's consumption unless they are convinced there is a good reason to switch to other brand, also known as energy threshold or called as 'status quo bias' by behavioural economists (Castella, 2011).Prof Mazzucato (cited in Castella, 2011) believes that consumer experts have a misconception that consumers behave rationally at all times and have the benefit of 'perfect information', but in reality, consumers happily stick to their chosen products or services which becomes their routine and inertia sets in due to both the costs of acquiring new information and the costs of switching has become a psychological barrier for them.
Inertia-driven consumers make purchasing intentions without much contemplation (Solomon, 2013).Inertia-driven consumers, therefore, unconsciously support the repeat purchasing of the same brands based on their past consumption experience (Gulati, 1995;Oliver, 1999;Solomon, 2013).Past studies test that consumer inertia could drive consumer to repeat purchase (Goh et al., 2016;Huang & Yu, 1999;Kuo, Hu & Yang, 2013;Liu et al., 2007, cited in Goh et al., 2016;White & Yanamandram, 2007).Therefore, consumer inertia has a positive effect on the repeat purchase as consumers will be more likely not to switch to other brands.
Some reasons that consumers develop inertia can be linked to familiarity, saving time and cost, and minimal difference between alternate brands (Anderson & Srinivasan, 2003;Liu et al., 2007, cited in Goh et al., 2016;Oliver, 1999;Tsai & Huang, 2007).Familiarity occurs when consumers get more and more familiar with the band by supporting it, in order to avoid uncertainty in choosing alternate brands.Some consumers are also reluctant to spend time and money to get accustomed to the new brands, thus developing inertia.The same reason goes for minimal differences in brand, where consumers tend to repeat their purchase unless there are noticeable differences in alternatives provided by competitors.

Satisfaction
Previous studies have used satisfaction as one of the important independent variables for repeat purchase intention (Chiu et al., 2012;Goh et al., 2016;Kuo, Hu & Yang, 2013).Satisfaction occurs when the consumer is Therefore, it can be argued that hedonic value is one of the main drivers of repeat purchase intention (Kim & Gupta, 2009;Lin, Sher & Shih., 2005).Past studies also confirm that importance of various hedonic values enable the drive to loyalty and repeat purchase (Chiu et al., 2014;Jones, Reynolds & Arnold, 2006;Overby & Lee, 2006) thus hedonic value will positively influence repeat purchase intention.
Based on the literature review on the study variables, a research framework has been developed (Figure 1) that shows the relationship between independent variables with the dependent variable.

Design
Convenience sampling was used as the quantitative data collection type, mostly comprising of students since the researcher's sample location was around the University locality.Although the minimum sample size for convenience sampling is 100, sample size of 140 was finalised as it was suitable for fulfilling the research objectives (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2012).Furthermore, the sampling design is non-probability convenience sampling because it requires very low cost, is extensively used, and there is no need of full population list (Harvard Research Methods, n.d.;Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2012;Zikmund et al., 2009).
For the purpose of data collection, closed-ended questionnaires were designed since this is a quantitative study.Therefore, the sources required to construct a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, and Strongly Agree) were adapted from past literature (Table 2).Data collection took 1 month to complete and a combination of online and drop & pick methods were used in and around the university campus area.The questionnaire consisted of 44 questions divided into 7 sections.Section A measured responses regarding the respondents' luxury purchase (such as favourite brand(s), purchase frequency, annual spending, etc.).As such, the questionnaire was scoped to 8 luxury brands, namely, Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Rolex, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Coach.Section B consisted of demography related questions (such as age, gender, income, nationality, etc.).Lastly, sections C to G consisted of questions related to the research variables of this study, which were sourced from various past authors' questionnaires.

Instrumentation
As seen from table 2 below, repeat purchase intention was sourced from Tsai & Huang (2007), which has 4 questions.Satisfaction was also adapted from Tsai & Huang (2007), which has 4 questions.Both hedonic value along with its dimensions, have been sourced from Arnold & Reynold (2003), which has a total of 18 questions.Consumer Inertia questions were adapted from Anderson & Srinivasan (2003) which has 3 questions.Finally, product attribute questions were sourced from Goh et al. (2016), which has 3 questions.
In order for the above mentioned questionnaires to be valid and reliable, Cronbach alpha with a minimum value of 0.7 is required for a questionnaire to be accepted (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).As such, the Cronbach alpha of the questionnaires from all the above mentioned sources are well above 0.7, meaning that they are reliable, valid and suitable sources for developing the questionnaire for this research in order to measure appropriate responses from the target subjects.

Data Analysis
Descriptive and inferential analyses were carried out to achieve research objectives.The research analysis was scoped to relationship testing.As such, correlation and linear regression modelling tests were carried out using SPSS software.Preliminary tests such as normality, data reliability and validity tests were conducted before proceeding to relationship testing.This was done to ensure the data collected from respondents through questionnaires were reliable enough to proceed to the data analysis stage.The findings of the study are interpreted and discussed in the following section.

Results
Table 5 below shows the linear regression modelling of the independent variables of Product Attribute (PA), Satisfaction (S), Consumer Inertia (CI), Hedonic Value (HV) against the dependent variable Repeat Purchase Intention (RPI).As seen from table 5 above, firstly, the significance model is represented as F (4, 118) = 26.987,p = 0.000.The result is significant as p value is well below 0.05.In other words, these values (independent variables) are good predictors of the outcome variable RPI.Secondly, 46% of the variance in HVO, S, CI and PA can be explained by one's level of RPI (from adjusted R square of 0.460).Finally, the unstandardised regression coefficients values (Beta slope) can be used to explain the graphical line (of equation y = mx + b) that uses independent variables to predict RPI (Pallant, 2010).Therefore, the regression model for RPI is: repeat purchase intention = 0.584 overall hedonic value + 0.709 satisfaction + 0.012 consumer inertia + (-0.007) product attribute + (-1.649).
Among the four predictor variables, only two variables of overall hedonic value and satisfaction were found to have significance towards repeat purchase intention (at 0.000 levels).As such, 0.339 and 0.484 were the standardised coefficients (Beta) found for overall hedonic value and satisfaction respectively.Thereof, satisfaction has a more stronger and positive correlation (and a stronger predictor) of repeat purchase intention (0.484>0.339).It is also worth mentioning that consumer inertia has no correlation and is a very weak predictor of repeat purchase, and product attribute shows a weak and negative correlation with repeat purchase intention.
Table 6 below has a separate regression model for the five dimensions of hedonic value.Therefore, the prediction level of dimensions on repeat purchase intention is analysed separately below.As seen from table 6 above, the significance model is represented as F (5, 119) = 14.176, p = 0.000.The result is significant as p value is well below 0.05.Therefore, the dimension values of hedonic value are also good predictors of the outcome variable RPI.34.70% of the variance in these five dimensions can be explained by one's level of RPI.Therefore, the regression model for the dimensions is: repeat purchase intention = 0.022 adventure + 0.177 gratification + 0.049 role + 0.042 social + 0.497 idea + 0.344.
Among these five predictor dimension variables of HV, only one variable of idea was found to have significance towards repeat purchase intention (at 0.000 level).As such, 0.449 is the standardised coefficients (Beta) for this dimension.It can also be argued that the idea dimension of hedonic value is a stronger predictor than the overall hedonic value itself (0.449 > 0.339).However, since the inter-variable analysis is out of the scope of this research, it can be concluded from table 6 that only idea dimension is a significant predictor of RPI.
To summarise, the more product attributes or features luxury brands may have to offer, the less people are willing to repeat their consumption.Similarly, consumer inertia has no effect on the repeat purchase of luxury brands as consumers may find it easy and convenient to switch to other brands without much effort.Furthermore, a consumer who is satisfied and experiences hedonic values (including idea values such as new fashion trends and styles) towards luxurious consumptions, are most likely to repeat purchase as luxurious consumption is often associated with material and psychological benefits.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The current research of Chiu et al. (2012), Chiu et al. (2014), Goh et al. (2016), and Kuo, Hu & Yang (2013) has sparked particular interest for this study to pursue the repeat purchase intention for luxury brands.The common theme for these studies is the repeat purchase intention.However, the antecedents, study location and research topic differed.Most of the studies relating to luxury brands have been in relation with purchase and repeat purchase intentions towards consumer buying behaviour in various locations.However, very little research is done on the repeat purchase intention, particularly on luxury brands in the Malaysia region (Table 1).For example, research done by Goh et al. (2016) have studied on the impact of consumer inertia, product attribute, satisfaction, and social influence on the repeat purchase intention among Malaysian consumers, but it is focussed on the smartphone market.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the repeat purchase intention of luxury brands among generation Y consumers in Malaysia.The findings indicate that satisfaction and hedonic value have strong correlation with repeat purchase intention, satisfaction being the strongest predictor for consumers in Malaysia.Although majority of the respondents were Malay university students belonging to the generation Y age group, the results may not be a true representation of the entire population because of the convenience sample methodology that was limited to Kuala Lumpur location.Future research is recommended that can use a more precise data collection technique (such as random sampling, etc.) that could further enhance the data findings.
The research findings will enable luxury brand companies to better understand what motivates consumers in Malaysia to repeat luxury purchases from them.Firstly, marketers should understand that keeping their customers satisfied and fulfilling their hedonistic needs are important factors to motivate the consumers to continue to repeat their purchases with luxury brands.Secondly, since celebrity endorsements and advertisements also increase the likelihood to repeat purchase, marketers should continue their marketing campaigns accordingly to not only enhance repeat purchase and loyalty, but to attract new customers as well.
Finally, marketers must keep their luxury brands trendy, up-to-date and fashionable for better brand positioning, and in order to maintain current customer base.
This study has aimed to bridge the gap between luxury and repeat purchase fields in Malaysia, and has found that satisfaction and hedonic value plays a key role in the minds of consumers to repeat their luxury consumption.However, it is recommended for researchers to further investigate the correlations of other variables in this study to confirm or contradict these findings.They may do so by testing these on other larger sample locations or with other brands or in other topics as well.Furthermore, researchers can use other variables to test the psychological impact on the consumers' luxurious consumption, be it a single or repeated purchase.Finally, researchers can use other data measuring methods (such as qualitative analysis, random sampling, etc.) to get a more precise and detailed analysis in luxury field.Furthermore, researchers can test the effect and impact of these variables on the repeat purchase intention, because this study has only tested the relationships between independent variables with depend variable.
Finally, this is a quantitative and descriptive research that is limited to the scope of the generation Y consumers' luxury repeat purchase intention in Malaysia.Data was collected through closed-ended questionnaires by means of convenience sampling.As such, it is recommended for future researchers to use more precise data collection techniques and on a larger sample to get further insights on the consumer behaviour in Malaysia.

Table 2 .
Instrumentation Respondent Profile 134 responses have been received (73.10% males and 26.90% females) in this study from Kuala Lumpur region.Table 3 below shows that the majority of respondents were single Malay male university students below 24 years of age.The sample belongs to the generation Y age-group cohort.

Table 4 .
Itemised Questions for Research Variables in Row Percentage

Table 5 .
Summary of Multiple (Linear) Regression Analyses for Repeat Purchase Intention

Table 6 .
Dimension Variable Summary of Multiple (Linear) Regression Analyses for Repeat Purchase Intention