2 Name: Institution: Course: Instructor: Date: Counterfeit Goods Introduction Counterfeit consumer goods are products that are sold with the name of another brand without the original brand owner authorization and are often of low quality. In other words, they are described as knockoffs, fake, replicas or copy products. The sellers of these products often infringe the patent, trademark and the copyright of the owner of the brand by using the names of the brand as theirs. The prevalence of counterfeit products has extended to almost every nation in the world and this is not only posing a risk to a country’s local industries that fear lack of market for their products but also a health risk to people who use these products. Counterfeit products are in every industry such as pharmaceuticals, construction, software, toys, perfumes, music recordings, medicine and others (Ahmad, Shamsi & Hussain, 2016). The use of counterfeit products such as fake medicine pose a dangerous health problem to individuals and also the construction of building using counterfeit goods leads to the collapse of these building during or sometime after construction hence resulting to loss of property and lives. Counterfeit products only last for a short time hence making the buyers incur more costs when purchasing the products again. Consumer behavior relates to how customers select and buy goods in the market to satisfy their want. The relationship between selecting or buying counterfeit and consumer behavior largely depend on customer's attitude towards the counterfeit product where he or she might have purchased one before, pricing, integrity, personal gratification and subjective norm (Carpenter & Edwards, 2013). This paper will, therefore, determine the effect or impact of having counterfeit products on consumer behavior. Further, the paper will determine how the customer attitude and behavior influence their selection decisions. Companies also require information on consumer behavior so that they can devise their marketing strategies by checking at how the consumers respond to a certain counterfeit product. Impacts of Counterfeit Goods on Consumer Behavior To examine the relationship between counterfeit products and consumer behavior several factors such as consumer intentions, pricing, integrity, and availability as well as how they link to each other. By describing the above factors will bring light on how the consumer is tricked into buying these products thinking it’s genuine. Some people either purchase knockoffs intentionally or unintentionally due to the high level of similarities (Blackstone, Fuhr & Pociask, 2014). Recently most counterfeit products have moved towards ensuring improving quality of their products hence making it difficult to differentiate between them with the original one. First, customer intentions largely determine if one will go for a replica product or not. Customers have different needs and they choose products depending on ho.

1. 2
Name:
Institution:
Course:
Instructor:
Date:
Counterfeit Goods
Introduction
Counterfeit consumer goods are products that are sold with the
name of another brand without the original brand owner
authorization and are often of low quality. In other words, they
are described as knockoffs, fake, replicas or copy products. The
sellers of these products often infringe the patent, trademark
and the copyright of the owner of the brand by using the names
of the brand as theirs. The prevalence of counterfeit products
has extended to almost every nation in the world and this is not
only posing a risk to a country’s local industries that fear lack
of market for their products but also a health risk to people who
use these products. Counterfeit products are in every industry
such as pharmaceuticals, construction, software, toys, perfumes,
music recordings, medicine and others (Ahmad, Shamsi &
Hussain, 2016). The use of counterfeit products such as fake
medicine pose a dangerous health problem to individuals and
also the construction of building using counterfeit goods leads
to the collapse of these building during or sometime after
construction hence resulting to loss of property and lives.
Counterfeit products only last for a short time hence making the
buyers incur more costs when purchasing the products again.

2. Consumer behavior relates to how customers select and buy
goods in the market to satisfy their want. The relationship
between selecting or buying counterfeit and consumer behavior
largely depend on customer's attitude towards the counterfeit
product where he or she might have purchased one before,
pricing, integrity, personal gratification and subjective norm
(Carpenter & Edwards, 2013). This paper will, therefore,
determine the effect or impact of having counterfeit products on
consumer behavior. Further, the paper will determine how the
customer attitude and behavior influence their selection
decisions. Companies also require information on consumer
behavior so that they can devise their marketing strategies by
checking at how the consumers respond to a certain counterfeit
product.
Impacts of Counterfeit Goods on Consumer Behavior
To examine the relationship between counterfeit products and
consumer behavior several factors such as consumer intentions,
pricing, integrity, and availability as well as how they link to
each other. By describing the above factors will bring light on
how the consumer is tricked into buying these products thinking
it’s genuine. Some people either purchase knockoffs
intentionally or unintentionally due to the high level of
similarities (Blackstone, Fuhr & Pociask, 2014). Recently most
counterfeit products have moved towards ensuring improving
quality of their products hence making it difficult to
differentiate between them with the original one.
First, customer intentions largely determine if one will go for a
replica product or not. Customers have different needs and they
choose products depending on how they want to satisfy these
needs. A buyer whose aim is to buy many items, sell them and
make large profits will often go for counterfeit products because
they are cheap. This is an indicator that when these buyers need
products they have to choose counterfeit over original ones as
they are less expensive and they will be able to sell more items
at cheaper prices thus making profits. The buyer gets
accustomed to the replicas and this influence the consumer

3. behavior in the sense that in most cases they have to choose and
buy fake products over the original one (Chaudhry & Stumpf,
2011). This happens as many consumers often go for cheaper
products due to the low purchasing and also since the fake
products last for a short time they choose them for short
projects over original ones which are slightly expensive. A
person whose aim is to make long-term projects such as
building will often go for the quality raw materials and will
anyway try to avoid counterfeit products as he or she is familiar
with the repercussions of using low-quality goods (de Lucio &
Valero, 2014). Selecting between a counterfeit and an original
product becomes difficult due to the increased quality of the
copy and in such circumstances, they will get tricked to buying
counterfeit over original one (Drucker, 2014).
Lack of consciousness and education is another major problem
that makes people land into the deception of replicas. People
lack education on the health impacts and effects on the economy
when they choose to buy replicas. Also, some other individuals
are not health conscious and fail to question themselves on
something. Such people lack full information on the harm
associated with using these products. The cosmetics industry is
among the industries that are growing at a steady rate which is
up to 3% with a worth $445 billion during 2016. In 2017 the
industry spiked to a growth of approximately 12%. This has
created an opportunity for knockoffs to enter the market due to
high demand (Cho, Fang & Tayur, 2015). Companies like Estee
Lauder, have been hard hit by this problem and its customers
are tricked into buying fake products in believing they are
buying original products. Continued lack of information about
the dangers of using knock-offs is making people become less
conscious of their health and the economy as well (Economics,
2017). Also, knockoffs have reached large online retailers thus
available to the larger market. Knock-offs are very cheap and,
in most cases,, they are fifty percent below the recommended
retail price (Staake, Thiesse & Fleisch, 2009).
The final factor that may make consumers shift to buying

4. counterfeit thus impacting on their customer behavior is peer
pressure and lack of integrity. Some people especially the
extroverts have a societal pressure which makes them shift their
attention on high-end products. They believe that high-end
products will make them authentic and will improve their self-
worth. Even when these individuals cannot afford these
products they choose to go for a counterfeit such as jewelry
parts, watches, outfits and bags (Dégardin, Roggo & Margot,
2014). When they receive approval and appreciation from others
this increases their ego and they engage into a vicious cycle of
purchasing the products. Lack of integrity is what makes them
go for these products because as influencers of the society they
should set a good example by choosing only to purchase
authentic and original products. The pressure to buy a certain
product due to the pressure of the society increases the chances
of buying cheap copies which might cause health risks thus a
clear show of carelessness (Andres et al., 2014).
How Consumer Behavior Affects Firm’s Marketing Decisions to
Combat Counterfeit Products
It is evident that the marketing decision to go for a certain
product largely depends on its availability and price. Companies
have to rely on the data of consumer behavior to purchasing
counterfeit products to revamp their marketing strategies.
Where consumers are more inclined to counterfeit products, it
influences how companies prepare their product for the
marketplace. Continued creation of copies is a loss to
companies as they have to strive with the tight competition and
ensure it makes profits. One of the challenges that companies
face due to the presence of knock-off is allocating high
expenditure to protect and enforce patent and intellectual
property rights thus reduction in profit margins(du et al., 2017).
Firms have to protect their products and by that, they come up
with strategies to combat counterfeiting through investigations
and lawsuits. So they have to improve their human resources,
marketing, and development of products (Michman & Mazze,
2006).

5. With counterfeit goods in the market, there is high competition
due to the low cost of products and easy accessibility of the
copies since retailers go for cheap products so as to make more
profits in return due to more sales. Counterfeit highly influence
and impact marketing decision (Oliver, 2014). First, the
company can decide to improve the quality and packing of the
product. Improved quality will ensure that the product continues
to meet the customer’s need, does not cause a health crisis and
serve them for a longer time compared to the copies thus
reduced competition. Again the firms can decide to develop
designs that cannot be counterfeited by focusing on the styling
and packaging (Thumm, N., Butticè, V., Caviggioli, F., &
Franzoni, C, 2018 ). Finally, the firm can choose to come up
with repairs and support services. This may be costly for a
company that wishes to avoid competition but at last, it will
benefit the company as it will attract and retain more customers.
Last, the marketing mix decision that a business can result in
due to the prevalence of counterfeit goods is a promotion. A
company ought to keep of communicating the information of the
product to its customers by giving updates on the designs and
the reasons to use the product and what the company is doing to
ensure that all customer needs are met. The company can seek
to use social media as a tool for an advertisement or other
advertising channels to communicate the innovations
implemented by the companies regarding the products. The
advancements of a product should be designed in such a way
that it will not be copied (Fink, Maskus & Qian, 2016).
Conclusion
It is evident that counterfeit products are harmful to any country
where they destroy the local industries or global industries
wh*ose aim is to produce genuine and quality products as well
as creating employment to a majority in the country. It is
illegal to produce counterfeit products and the penalties for
such activity are very harsh with a minimum of twenty years in
jail if found guilty (De Mooij, 2018). So it is upon the
government to improve its enforcement strategies by giving the

6. public and brand owners an opportunity to seek legal actions
against the knockoffs. Also, the government can create
awareness of the effect of embracing counterfeit goods by
educating them of the health concerns of counterfeit products as
well as an economic crisis brought by these illegal activities.
The government loses a lot of money on untaxed goods as they
are sneaked into the country as they are smuggled to the country
where they evade taxes.
References
Academic Journals
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Counterfeit Products On Consumer Buying Behavior: Empirical
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