Deceptive Counterfeit Luxury Products

Counterfeit means copying how something is made. In product counterfeit, the manufacturer imitates how the original product is made so as to gain the superior value of the imitated product. Imitation can be used in forging documents and currency but the most area affected is software and electronics like phone, watches, and parts of the vehicle, shoes, handbag, clothing and shoes. China is the leading country in producing counterfeit products with some of its online platforms like Alibaba being accused of promoting counterfeit (Bian, et al, 2017).

There are two known types of counterfeit on the side of the consumer. They include deceptive and non-deceptive. Deceptive counterfeit is when the customer is not aware that the quality of the product is not the same as original. Many companies have experienced this type of counterfeit, and they have put various measures to fight it. An example is in the article of Marc Brain on the Alibaba’s Jack Ma. A consumer purchased a fake thing unknowingly, and the consumer had to demand the money back.

Another form of counterfeit is non-deceptive counterfeit mostly on luxury products. Non-deceptive counterfeit is when the consumer is aware that the product he or she is buying is fake.  The consumer still engages in buying the fake product knowing that it is not the original version. Areas most affected with counterfeit are the area in fashion and computer software. Industry affected in fashion are like Gucci, Luis Vuitton among others (Koklic, 2011).

The consumer purchasing luxury goods always want to buy non-deceptive goods because they think they have almost the same thing at a lower price. Like a good Monogram, Zippy Wallet cost 455 Euros while a fake one cost 40 Euros. Some of the consumers will go for the fake product because the counterfeit products also appeal to people who want to show their status but cannot afford the genuine product while some shoppers believe that large enterprises cannot make losses due to counterfeit goods, but instead the counterfeit products make the big firms popular.

It is also believed by some researchers like Gresmans model that the decision criteria faced by a person when faced with an ethical issue is affected by the intention, value, and knowledge. And consumers are perceived of the value of the non-deceptive counterfeit products, and this is the main reason why they purchase these products. In the circumstance where the value of counterfeit is higher or almost the same as original product, people will buy the original product and neglect the copy (Bian, et al, 2017). Therefore the statement does not work on this kind of goods.

The reason why some consumers fail to detect the counterfeit product.

1. The first reason why consumer fail to detect counterfeit product is that brand owners do not keep reminding consumers about the unique feature of their brand
2. The second reason is that the counterfeit companies are more viral in social media than the original companies hence the consumer familiarize with the fake product than the original one
3. Another reason why it is hard to differentiate the counterfeit and the original product is because the fake company make products which are almost real and of good quality

References

Bian, X., & Veloutsou, C. (2017). Consumers’ Attitudes Regarding Non-deceptive Counterfeit Brands in the UK and China. In Advances in Chinese Brand Management (pp. 331-350). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Koklic, M. K. (2011). Non-deceptive counterfeiting purchase behavior: Antecedents of attitudes and purchase intentions. Journal of Applied Business Research, 27(2), 127.