To buy or not to buy a “counterfeit” Ralph Lauren polo shirt: The role of lawfulness and legality toward purchasing counterfeits

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of personality factors and attitudes toward consumers' willingness to knowingly purchase counterfeit luxury brands.

Convenience sampling method is to be employed and a self‐administered questionnaire distributed to students in a large Australian University. A commonly counterfeited luxury branded product will be used as the stimulus of the study. In total, 202 useable responses have been retained for analysis.

The findings are that attitudes do not influence consumers' willingness to purchase counterfeit luxury brands. Integrity is noted to be a strong influencer of both attitudes and consumer willingness to purchase consistently. Both buyers and non‐buyers are tested for their attitudinal differences. Status consumption and materialism does not play a role in influencing attitudes or willingness to purchase.

Only one product category is looked at. Other sampling methods can be looked into such as mall intercept. Culture and nationality may also have influences on moral and ethical issues which can be tested in future studies.

Advertisers and strategists should consider putting a more “human face” on the damaging effects of counterfeiting and look into the possible demographic factors. Consumers should be educated on the negative consequences of counterfeiting and effects on economy.

While past studies have delved into examining consumer attitudes towards counterfeit products, a low involvement luxury brand item was not utilized as a stimulus. An Australian context has not been looked into.