India is set to be a ten trillion economy in the next 10 years, it is in a place where China was a decade back. The luxury goods market is obviously lured towards this booming market opportunity. Luxury stores have popped up out of nowhere, in all major malls like Mumbai’s Palladium or Delhi’s Emporio or Bengaluru’s UB City mall. Consumers who restricted themselves to window shopping in the luxury section, have finally taken to stepping in the stores. Some have even made their first luxury purchase, nothing too fancy or expensive, a pair of Diesel jeans may be or a Louis Vuitton bag.
The luxury goods market is expected to be worth $14 billion in revenues in the next year, marketers have been swiftly broadening an expanding their scope and building strong selling tactics. The customers in the luxury market are divided into three categories, the HENRYs, or High Earning But Not Rich Yet consumers, the ‘Windfall’ consumers and the last but most important category which is wealthy industrial families and C-suite executives. There is a total of 1,37,000 households in India, which belong in this category. The luxury goods market evolves in four stages. The first one is when people buy and wear knockoffs of luxury goods, the second one is where people flaunt their luxury purchases, the third when luxury goods are an integral part of the culture and the fourth is when people are repelled from luxury goods. The Indian consumer is still in the first two phases, luxury brands too are trying to adapt to the tastes of the Indian consumer.
