Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate how exclusivity and rarity (natural versus virtual) influence consumers' perceptions of luxury. Further, it examines whether exclusivity and rarity can function as distinct marketing strategies in today's luxury market environment. Design/methodology/approach Online questionnaires were administered by adapting developed scales from prior research. Research stimuli were chosen from three luxury categories including bags, wine and cruise. Confirmatory factor analysis and multiple regressions were used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results confirmed that exclusivity, natural rarity and virtual rarity were perceived as relatively distinct constructs among our sample. Findings also highlighted that perceived natural rarity (PNR) has consistently emerged as a positive and significant contributor to consumers' perceptions of luxury across all three luxury categories. The influence of perceived exclusivity (PE) on perceptions of luxury has also shown to be significant for two product categories (luxury bag and luxury wine), whereas perceived virtual rarity (PVR) did not show any significant effects across all three categories. Practical implications The results indicate that consumers perceive natural rarity, virtual rarity and exclusivity as relatively distinctive marketing strategies. This suggests that luxury businesses can adopt each strategy independently to achieve desired marketing outcomes. Originality/value This study offers theoretical support for the proposition that exclusivity and rarity may have different functions in luxury marketing implementations. It provides empirical evidence showing the distinctiveness of perceived exclusivity and perceived rarity, which have not be done in previous research.
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