Consumer Attitudes Towards Counterfeits

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Consumers can both be victims and accomplices in the case of product counterfeiting. When consumers buy a counterfeit product unknowingly, they become victims of counterfeiting. It has also come to light that consumers purchase them willingly because of the price cheaper than that of the original product. In such a case they are encouraging the trade of counterfeit products. The Anti-Counterfeiting Group campaigning against the trade in fakes conducted a study of consumer attitudes towards counterfeits and interviewed 929 consumers in this regard in UK. The report published in the year 2004 brought up interesting facts. The interviews revealed that 33% of the respondents would purchase a counterfeit knowingly if the product is of right quality …show more content…

The intrinsic determinants include consumer demographics, their attitudes towards counterfeiting, cultural values as well as their ethical perspective. The extrinsic determinants of consumer complicity include the product attributes, the shopping experience as well as social marketing communications. This model of consumer complicity was first developed by Chaudhury and Stumpf in 2008. The consumer demographics like their age, income, education, level of disposable income etc are important determinants of their willingness to buy counterfeits. It is generally found that young consumers with relatively low levels of income are most willing to buy counterfeits that are available at cheaper prices. Another important factor is cultural values of the consumers. Cultural beliefs also shape the consumers’ attitude towards counterfeits. Apart from that it is the consumers’ attitude towards morality and lawfulness or their ethics that decide how willing they would be to buy counterfeits. The extrinsic factors like price, product image, shopping location as well as the effectiveness (Chaudhry & Zimmerman, 2009) of the antipiracy ads are also important determinants of consumer complicity. Effective antipiracy ads can curb the attitude to support counterfeit products. A research conducted by TrianDewi and Tjiptono in 2013 in Indonesia identified that past purchases and personal characteristics were significant predictors of consumer intention to buy counterfeits. They identified that consumer affordability was a major issue that needed to be solved in order to discourage counterfeiting. (Triandewi&Tjiptono,

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