CHARLOTTE, NC — Upscale consumers apparently have very different mindsets than their counterparts with more moderate incomes when it comes to many kitchen-related measures.

That’s the overriding message found from the results in the most recent study – conducted online among a randomly selected group of 1,087 U.S. consumers – by the Research Institute for Cooking & Kitchen Intelligence (RICKI), an independent, membership-based organization of manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and publications whose revenues come from sales related to activities that take place in the kitchen, including kitchen remodeling.

“We broke out this research to take a look at the data among three income groups, which we call Ultra-High-End, High-End and Moderate,” said Riley Kirby, chief of research for the Charlotte, NC-based RICKI.

Specifically, Ultra-High-End consumers were defined as those having reported a household income of $200,000 or more. By comparison, High-End consumers reported a household income between $100,000 and $199,999, and Moderate consumers reported a household income of less than $100,000.

According to RICKI, while the kitchen is largely considered by most Americans to be the heart of the home, Ultra-High-End consumers “are considerably more engaged in their kitchens, spend more money on kitchen improvements, and are much more likely to say the look of their kitchens reflects on them.”

Specifically, compared to their counterparts in the other two segments, Ultra-High-End consumers are:

• Significantly more likely to agree with statements such as “I want my kitchen to say a lot about me” and “My kitchen is my favorite part of my home.”
• Much more likely to spend higher amounts on kitchen improvements. Among those who improved their kitchens within the past year (not necessarily a complete remodel), Ultra High-End consumers actually spent more than three times as much as the consumers in the High-End group and almost eight times as much as those in the Moderate consumers’ group (a median of $16,250 vs. $5,450 and $2,100, respectively).
• Much more likely to have hired a professional designer or architect for their project. Consumers at the uppermost household income are at least twice as likely as those in the other two household segments to have sought professional guidance from kitchen and bath designers or architects for their last kitchen project (41% vs. 21% and 12%, respectively).
• Significantly more brand-conscious than consumers in the other two categories. For example, the study shows that consumers in the Ultra High-End group are around twice as likely as those in the other two groups to say that the statement “I believe that the brands I buy somehow reflect on me” describes them completely.