Abstract
The rapid growth of the pet economy has given rise to luxury pet apparel as an emerging yet under-explored consumption domain, particularly within digitally mediated environments. In contemporary China, pets are increasingly positioned as emotional companions and extensions of the self, creating new conditions under which identity expression may be enacted through pet-related consumption. While existing luxury research has extensively examined identity expression in human-directed goods, less attention has been paid to how such processes operate when luxury is consumed through pets and displayed within online communities.
This study investigates how pet owners’ identity expression motives influence purchase intention for luxury pet apparel, with particular attention to the mediating role of perceived symbolic value within user-generated content-rich community settings. Perceived symbolic value refers to the extent to which consumers interpret luxury pet apparel as carrying meanings related to status display, lifestyle signalling, and identity affirmation, beyond its functional attributes. Drawing on Social Identity Theory and Self-Congruity Theory, the research conceptualises luxury pet apparel as a symbolic resource through which owners express identity, taste, and social positioning via their pets as an extended representation of the self. Pet humanisation is incorporated as a contextual condition within the model and refers to the tendency of owners to attribute human-like emotions, social roles, and moral significance to pets, thereby shaping how symbolic meanings are assigned to pet apparel and how identity expression is enacted through pet-directed consumption.
By developing and empirically testing a mechanism-based model that links identity expression motives, perceived symbolic value, and purchase intention within digitally mediated community environments, this study theoretically extends identity-based luxury consumption frameworks beyond human-centred consumption contexts. It demonstrates that symbolic meaning construction is not limited to direct relationships between consumers and products, but can also be realised through relational carriers of identity, and through socially mediated evaluation processes within online communities.