Determinants of Consumers’ Willingness to Buy Counterfeit Luxury Products: An Empirical Test of Linear and Inverted U-Shaped Relationship

Qiong Wu,Shukuan Zhao

doi:10.3390/su13031194

Abstract

The proliferation of counterfeit luxury goods poses a great threat to the sustainable development of the luxury goods industry; it also disturbs the order of economic development, causes the aggravation of environmental pollution, and is contrary to the principle of global sustainable development. How to effectively weaken consumers’ willingness to buy counterfeit luxury products has become a focal issue. This research explores the impact of value consciousness, social risk perception, and face consciousness on the purchase intention of counterfeit luxury. In addition, this study explores the different mediating roles played by attitude. The results show that value consciousness has a significant positive impact on the counterfeit luxury purchase intention through the full mediation of attitudes. Perceived social risk not only exerts a direct negative impact on the purchase intention of counterfeit luxury products but can also indirectly influence intention through the partial mediation of attitudes. Besides, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between face consciousness and counterfeit luxury purchase intention, and attitudes play a partially mediating role in this inverted U-shaped path. This research also has certain management implications for the government and luxury products companies to formulate relevant policies and marketing strategies to curb consumers’ willingness to purchase counterfeit luxury products.

Highlights

Luxury products refer to non-necessities of life that are expensive, excellent in quality, exquisite in craftsmanship, and unique in design, which can bring joy and prestige to consumers [1]
The first category is that consumers have purchased counterfeit luxury products without knowing it because it is difficult to distinguish between genuine luxury products and counterfeit products
The results show that the ace consciousness square is significantly negatively correlated with consumers’ willingness to buy counterfeit luxury products (r = −0.215, p < 0.001), indicating that there is an inverted

Summary

Introduction

Luxury products refer to non-necessities of life that are expensive, excellent in quality, exquisite in craftsmanship, and unique in design, which can bring joy and prestige to consumers [1]. Compared with genuine luxury products, counterfeit luxury products are generally cheaper. These factors have led to the counterfeit luxury products in the Chinese market showing an exponential growth trend [4]. Consumers’ purchases of counterfeit luxury products could be divided into two categories. The first category is that consumers have purchased counterfeit luxury products without knowing it because it is difficult to distinguish between genuine luxury products and counterfeit products. The second category is that consumers already know they are purchasing counterfeit goods. The luxury product is a counterfeit product, but due to the considerations of price, cost performance and other factors, the product is still purchased [6].

Methods

Results

Conclusion