Brand Protection and Counterfeiting in the United Kingdom and China

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between consumer purchasing behaviour of counterfeit luxury products and the approaches used by retailers to protect themselves from counterfeits. Most of the previous literature explored counterfeiting in the context of a single country with some taking the consumer's perspective (e.g. Nia and Zaichowsky, 2000) whilst others have focused on the retailer's perspective (e.g. Hasselmann, 2004). It has been suggested that anti-counterfeiting efforts would not be effective without a clear identification of consumer purchase intentions (Marcketti and Shelley, 2009). Otherwise, no evidence has been found of prior research focusing on the interrelationship between consumer attitudes towards counterfeit products and the brand protection strategies adopted in different markets even though counterfeit phenomena may develop differently in various countries and market environments. To begin to fill the perceived gap in the literature, this study provides estimates of the scope and magnitude of counterfeit activity together...