Would luxury brands benefit from empowering consumers in product decision-making?

This study explored how varying levels of empowerment strategies (i.e. full-empowerment, empowerment-to-select, and zero-empowerment) influence consumers’ responses in an online store environment from a psychological ownership perspective. In two online experimental studies, our findings revealed that consumers in the full-empowerment condition group showed significantly higher and more favourable product attitudes and quality perceptions through enhanced psychological ownership than those in the empowerment-to-select group and the zero-empowerment group. Further, the brand type moderated the relationship between empowerment strategies and consumer responses via psychological ownership. Overall, an empowerment strategy, either a full-empowerment or an empowerment-to-select strategy, is more effective for a luxury fashion brand than for a mass-market fashion brand.