Devil wears (counterfeit) Prada: a study of antecedents and outcomes of attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands

This paper sets out to examine how social and personality factors influence Chinese consumers' attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands and how these two sets of variables influence purchase intention. It provides a profile of buyers and non‐buyers of counterfeits of luxury brands.

A self‐administered questionnaire was designed using established scales. A survey was conducted in downtown Shanghai through the “mall intercept” method. A variety of statistical techniques were used to analyze the data.

Status consumption and integrity are strong influencers of purchase intention, whereas normative susceptibility, information susceptibility, personal gratification, value consciousness, and novelty seeking had weaker influencing relationships. The attitude towards counterfeits of luxury brands is found to influence purchase intention. Collectivism does not influence attitudes nor purchase intentions towards counterfeits of luxury brands.

The findings are limited to Chinese consumers in Shanghai, which cannot be generalized across the whole of China or other international markets. Further, only luxury brands are considered. Other cultural contexts and product categories should be investigated in the future.

The research provides an in‐depth understanding of Chinese consumers' attitudes towards counterfeits of luxury brands. The research findings can be used to formulate strategies for academia, practitioners and, more importantly, policy makers to help eradicate, or at the very least curb, counterfeiting activities.

The majority of previous studies focused on counterfeiting and piracy of music and other optical media, whereas this paper focused exclusively on luxury brands. Status consumption is also added as an antecedent towards attitudes and purchase intention of counterfeits.