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The focus of this study is on implications of consumer ethnocentrism and conspicuousness on buyers’ behaviour in one of the least researched but rapidly growing economic groups in the world – the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This study examines how ethnocentric tendencies and conspicuousness of foreign products infl uence consumer preferences in the context of imports from South Africa, the most developed SADC state, into Mozambique, the least developed SADC state. The survey involved 273 representatives of different ethnic groups. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the model and hypotheses (using LISREL 8.8). The paper suggests that the outcome of the consumer dilemma between ethnocentric consumption of domestic products on the one hand, and conspicuous consumption of foreign products on the other, depends upon the consumption mode of products – whether products are publicly or privately consumed.