Prevalence of ‘Face Concept’ among South Asian Consumers. A Comparative Study of Unfolding the Facets in Decision Making Process of Buying Beauty Products

Abstract

The focus of this paper is to explore the level of importance of the term ‘face concept’, consumers transfer in their purchase decision of beauty products. The author intends to study differences in the consumption behaviour of highly collectivists Bangladeshi consumers’ compare to the highly individualistic UK consumers. Concept of face is acknowledged in every culture. However, the term ‘face’ is characterised differently according to one’s cultural setting; for example, ‘face’ represents the interpersonal relationship between the individual and groups in Asian society. On the other hand, from a European perspective face may represent stronger personal self and assertion. In this paper the author tends to identify the contributing factors to ‘face concept’ of Bangladeshi female consumers in their pre, actual and post-purchase behaviour of cosmetics products compared to the British female consumers. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted among female Bengali consumers in the capital city of Dhaka in Bangladesh and female British consumers in Southwest London in the United Kingdom. The research has compared the degree of face concept and its impact on decision making process of female consumers in the UK and the Bangladesh by using factor analysis. Five factors were extracted from factor analysis: ‘thoughts in cosmetics’, ‘brand link to social recognition and prestige’, ‘skin colour link to authority in society’, ‘group conformity’ and ‘personal-self’. It was noticed in the labelling process of the five factors that the extracted components were not exactly the same for both Bangladesh and the United Kingdom.
Classification-JEL:
Keywords: National culture; Consumer behaviour; Face concept; Collectivistic/ Individualistic culture; Group conformity; Decision-making process; Cosmetics purchase.