“Factors affecting consumers’ purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh”

The purpose of study is to examine the factors behind the purchase intention for coun-terfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This research also sought to measure the effect of product attribute, brand image, level of income, price, and gender regarding the purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods. Data were gathered from a sample of 242 individual respondents living in different areas of Dhaka city who had experience of purchasing various counterfeit luxury goods. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain survey data through a personal interview. Descriptive statistics, reliability statistics, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis have been used to analyze the collected data. The results show that among five factors, only three of them, such as product attribute, brand images and level of income, are more influential predictors in purchase intention for counterfeit luxury items than price and gender. The findings of the study show a better understanding based on a developing country on how these factors affect purchasing intention of counterfeit luxury items. Thus, the study intends to identify different socio-demographic and behavioral predictors in terms of counterfeiting luxury goods. The result depicts that comparing to original products, Bangladeshi consumers are more prone to use counterfeit luxury items to maintain social values and status. Finally, limitations and managerial implications of the study, along with future research avenues, have been discussed.


INTRODUCTION
A global trend has been observed in manufacturing, distributing, and consumption of counterfeit luxury goods (Norum & Cuno, 2011).Counterfeiting is described as the production of goods that are similar to the original product, including trademarks, labeling, and package assumed to appear to a consumer as a genuine product (Patiro & Sihombing, 2016).Since no product or brand is immune to counterfeiting, the consequences are considered as a serious problem that creates trouble for the original manufacturers (Lee & Workman, 2011).Counterfeiting affects not only the products whose brand name is synonymous with the fake product's quality or taste but also the products research, development, and marketing (Hieke, 2010).Counterfeit luxury goods are posing threats for both health and environment in those countries where there are strict laws for banning these items (World Trademark Review, 2010).Due to the growing number of counterfeit items in the market, customers' interest is also increasing to purchase those fake products (Bhatia, 2018).It is seen that counterfeit luxury items are highly visible in those product categories that have an elevated demand, in addition to that the manufacturing process of that product is inexpensive and widely accessible (Chiu & Leng, 2016).
The market of counterfeit items is massive.A broad spectrum of counterfeit products spanning from a small item to expensive items observed throughout the world in different product categories (Chiu & Leng, 2016).Demand for purchasing counterfeit items are increasing day by day due to several factors (Quoquab et al., 2017).Generally, people are keen to spend disproportionate parts of their income on purchasing luxury products (Wiedmann et al., 2007).People of low-income level are usually eager to buy counterfeit luxury items in the countries having weak intellectual properties law (Chiu & Leng, 2016).As brand usually represents the reflection of culture, beliefs, values, personality as well as the nationality to the users and people.So, people having high or low level of income are highly encouraged to use the top branded luxury commodities to demonstrate their social status (Aaker, 2009).On the other hand, for low-income people, counterfeit luxury items deemed as a good that alters as brand-new items in particular (Sharma & Chan, 2011).Researchers have identified several findings on the past studies on the significant factors affecting the purchase intention for counterfeit items based on country, generation, and value perceptions (Bhatia, 2018;Fastoso et al., 2018;Bachmann et al., 2018;Jiang & Shan, 2018).Besides, several studies have identified product attribute (Augusto et al., 2007;Yao, 2014), brand image (Mir et al., 2012), level of income (Mir et al., 2012;Rizwan et al., 2014), gender (Chen & Tang, 2006), perceived risks (Huang et al., 2004), integrity (Chiu & Leng, 2016), gratification (Ang et al., 2001), smart shopper (Penz & Stottinger, 2005), perceived behavioral control (Chiu & Leng, 2016), subjective norms (Chiu et al., 2014), and materialism (Yoo & Lee, 2009) etc., as the factors leading to counterfeit purchase intention.Given that earlier studies were investigated on different factors in different settings, it is also applicable to inspect the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury items from a developing country perspective.
In this study, the focus is given from the perspective of Bangladesh.Bangladeshi consumers are concerned about price, and keen in purchasing luxury goods at the lowest possible prices from the marketplace (Al-Mamun et al., 2014).Moreover, poverty is a significant challenge in this country, where the incidence of poverty rate is estimated at around 23.2 %, and the extreme poverty rate is 12.9% approximately (HIES, 2016).Per capita income of Bangladesh is one of the lowest across the whole world, and more than half of the population live below the World Bank's poverty line (Lewis, 2011).Despite the weak economy, laws regarding counterfeiting are loosely enforced in Bangladesh (Khan, 2012).Besides the number of middle-class, the number of wealthy consumers is increasing day by day, compared to other big emerging markets in the Asian region, Bangladesh market is still small in terms of the number of customers and product demand.Moreover, there is a lack of literature on counterfeit purchase intention from the perspective of Bangladesh.Little evidence was found from Faruqui et al. (2017), where they depicted different customer responses based on non-deceptive counterfeit brands.Other than that, there was no significant evidence based on the issue from Bangladesh.From the subjective norms, it was observed that product attribute is a prime factor in explaining customer intention to purchase a mobile phone in Bangladesh (Ashaduzzaman et al., 2011).Ashaduzzaman et al. (2011) also identified brand image as another significant predictor in purchasing different items in Bangladesh.Price issue is a significant determinant for the people of Bangladesh, as most of the people are looking for low price and quality items (Tinne, 2011).The gender inequality is shrinking day by day, and the economic power of women is also increasing along with men in Bangladesh (Uddin et al., 2019).So, from the cultural and socio-economic perspective of Bangladesh, the field of consumer research based on the purchase intention for counterfeit luxury items is quite necessary.The result of the study can be generalized for future research based on any developing country like Bangladesh.Thus, it is quite evident to investigate why people of a country like Bangladesh have the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury products, as well as it is also necessary to find the most influencing factors behind counterfeit purchase intention.Despite the global turmoil against the counterfeiting difficulty, there is a narrow focus that has been concentrated on this issue in academic literature to date, and counterfeit products of luxury items have not received much attention in the past research studies (Bhatia, 2018).A study based on a developing country like Bangladesh is particularly also scarce.Thus, the examination of different factors leading to counterfeit luxury purchase intention may yield a further understanding of counterfeit beyond the existing literature.

LITERATURE REVIEW
In most cases, counterfeit items are consumed by the customers who believe it as a genuine item (Chiu & Leng, 2016).However, some people are consciously purchasing counterfeit luxury items due to several reasons (Phau et al., 2009).Usually, consumers prevent themselves from buying counterfeit luxury, and these customers are categorized as 'right motives' buyers (Purwanto et al., 2019).However, sometimes, sellers are going to deceit customers by selling counterfeit luxury items (Pratt & Zeng, 2019).Besides, when the consumer is eager to purchase counterfeit luxury goods, it is considered as a non-deceptive counterfeit purchasing (Chiu & Leng, 2016).From that point, considering the factors leading to purchase intention for counterfeit luxury items, it is established as non-deceptive counterfeiting purchase (Eisend & Schuchert-Güler, 2006).As a result, the study intends to find leading factors behind non-deceptive counterfeiting items from Bangladesh's perspective.

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)
The association between attitude and purchase intention has been widely examined in consumer behavior literature (Erkan & Evans, 2016;Lee, 2016).The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) states the person's intention to accomplish a given behavior (Ajzen, 1991).Ajzen (1991) also states that "intentions are anticipated to capture the motivational factors that influence behavior."Several factors are shaping the attitude of people, which leads them to purchase counterfeit luxury brands (Chiu & Leng, 2016).Moreover, the purchasing decision for counterfeit items is very complex and challenging to make, where the temptation of enormous price advantage and attractiveness cannot restrain people without taking fake products (Penz & Stottinger, 2005).Past studies have identified that several favorable factors push the customers to buy counterfeit brands utilizing the TPB theory (Penz & Stottinger, 2005) regardless of product type and brand name (Chiu & Leng, 2016).A large number of studies supporting the Theory of Planned Behavior were evident in this field of accomplishments (Yadav & Pathak, 2017).These studies are the evidence, which indicates that the intentions are the projection of actual behavior (Rahimah et al., 2018).This research intends to incorporate different factors leading to behavior using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).Besides, this study has focused on finding a favorable attitude and subjective norm concerning purchase behavior.Among the various psychological theories, TPB has been widely accepted amongst consumer behavior scholars (Cheng et al., 2011).TPB is the extended version of Fishbein's theory of reasoned action (TRA) (Abraham & Sheeran, 2003;Schierz et al., 2017).Abraham and Sheeran (2003) mentioned that TPB suggests (a) the best way to predict personal behavior is to understand the intention, (b) the intentions are described by people's judgment of performing behavior and by their social issues (subjective norms), and (c) the external determinants only shows the indirect impact on behavior -these might be moderator, mediator and components of the model.Lastly, TPB extends the theory of reasoned action by adding another important construct-perceived behavioral control (PBC), which refers to the people's assessment of their ability to perform a behavior.Abraham and Sheeran (2003) also specified that TPB receives considerable support for correlation study.The study based on attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control has received much attention in different literature (Armitage & Conner, 2001).Past studies have identified different variables including personal, social, economic, and demographic as the prime factors leading to purchase intention for fake luxury goods (Jason & Karen, 2011; Ang et al., 2001).Stravinskiene et al. (2013) also considered situational factors including the product price, product availability and luxury goods promotion as the significant influencers regarding the shopping behavior of counterfeit luxury goods.However, the focus of this study is only on investigating the impact of product attribute, product price, brand image, consumers' level of income and gender on the purchase intention for counterfeit luxury products.

Product attributes
Sharma and Chan (2016) stated that product attribute sometimes has more influence on counterfeit purchase relative to other factors.Park-Poaps and Kang (2018) mentioned that products' functional attribute could lead to counterfeit purchase intention.Phau and Dix (2009) found that quality and performance of counterfeit products is improving and thus consumers are gaining the same kind of satisfaction from the use of counterfeit products as they would get from the branded product, albeit at a lower level.Besides, Moon et al. (2018) mentioned that product attributes including functional and emotional attributes affect on consumer's perception of counterfeit luxury items as well as influence their final purchase decision.Consumers undertakes product attributes as one of the significant indicators while making the decision process regarding purchasing of any product (Puth et al., 1999).Product attribute respect to quality, durability, price, availability, attractive packaging is important for the customers of Bangladesh.Since the 2000s, many scholars have reported a positive relationship between product attribute and counterfeit luxury purchase intention (Sharma & Chan, 2016).The study on purchasing counterfeit luxury items from the perspective of Bangladesh is very handful.Since the previous studies have evaluated the product attributes as one of the crucial reasons behind counterfeit purchasing decision, thus it is reasonable to examine the hypothesis from the developing country perspective: H1: Product attributes have a positive relationship with the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh.

Brand image
Brand image is identified as "how a brand is perceived by consumers" (Aaker, 1996), which deemed as a set of brand associations in consumer mind (Bian & Moutinho, 2011).Brand images are guided by perceptions of the customers; and the perception of customers is considered as the reality of marketing (Kapferer, 2002).Brand image is defined in many ways with different measures in personification approach and non-personification approach (Mete and Davies, 2017).Brand image is an essential predictor in making purchasing decision for counterfeit items (Sharma & Chan, 2016).The purchase of a counterfeit luxury item represents not only a "product" purchase decision but also the consumption of the brand itself (Gentry et al., 2001).Nia et al. (2000) also claimed that whether the consumers buy counterfeit products or original, they broadly do not find any differences at all. Brand image is essential because it influences the consumer's decision regarding the attainment (Dolich, 1969), and it influences on consumers' purchase intention (Bian & Moutinho, 2011).Throughout the world brand image appeals differently in different cultures (Koubaa, 2008).It was also found that brand image infers product evaluation (Liu & Johnson, 2005).In Bangladesh, people evaluate most of the brand image based on the brand identity and country of evolution (Arif, 2011;Tinne, 2013).In this study, we have focused more on brand identity and country of evolution to measure brand image.Besides, Wilcox et al.
(2009) mentioned that consumers buy counterfeit luxury products with the intention that it will represent them to maintain the status in classifying themselves into a prestigious social stratum where they want to put themselves.Several studies were evident in the positive relationship between the brand image and purchase intention (Purwanto et al., 2019).Thus, it is rationale to investigate how the brand image will influence the purchase intention of the consumers, and we would like to hypothesize that: H2: Brand image has a positive relationship with the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh.

Price
Gentry et al. (2002) claimed that the distinction between counterfeit luxury items and genuine luxury items does not appear to be dichotomous but is made up of various levels including genuine, masterpiece, imitator, top-quality and poor-quality counterfeits.The market demand for such counterfeit items is primarily caused by its lower prices compared to its original price (Chiu & Leng, 2016).The gap of the price in between the genuine luxury items and counterfeits is also profound to market both domestically and internationally.2011) also mentioned that the price of the product has a positive relationship with the purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods.Thus, it is reasonable to examine how product price influences the purchase intention of consumers for counterfeit luxury products and it can be postulated: H3: Products low price has a positive relationship with the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh.

Level of income
Bian and Veloutsou (2007) mentioned that consumers' different levels of income have the influence on purchase intention for counterfeit luxury products, and low-income people also have the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury items along with high-income people due to their sense of luxury belongingness and low purchasing capability (Rahman, 2011).Besides, the level of acceptance of counterfeit luxury items as substitutes of genuine items is higher in the countries where most of the people belong to low category income and they are willing to spend a minimal amount of their earnings for the luxury consumption (Chiu & Len, 2016;Belk, 1999).Since the restriction for counterfeit items is not very strict in developing countries, counterfeiting is more available in these countries than in developed countries ( 2001) also mentioned that males have more positive attitudes towards the purchase of fake products than females.On the other hand, it was also evident that females are also more heavy buyers of counterfeit products than their male counterparts (Cheung et al., 2006), and females have weaker beliefs about counterfeit fashion products than males (Huynh & Wilson, 2014).In Bangladesh, female customers are more conscious about the household products for their daily activities, and for their fashion items, they are also very concerned about luxury purchasing (Ahmed, 2014).In Bangladesh, men and women are participating in most of the sectors, and economic power of women is gradually increasing (Kalam & Amin, 2016).However, in an experimental study conducted in the USA, it was found that males tend to assume the purchase of counterfeit luxury products as a deceptive act, and they act more ethically than their female counterparts (Chen & Tang, 2006).Consequently, the cultural difference may be the possible explanation of the phenomenon that influences such purchase decisions of both male and female consumers (Nadeem et al., 2016) and it is reasonable to examine how consumers' gender will influence their intention regarding purchasing of counterfeit luxury items.In this study we have taken female as a reference category.Therefore, the following hypothesis is postulated: H5: Gender (female customers) has a positive relationship with the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh.
Based on the literature discussion, a conceptual framework has been proposed representing the constructs of the factors affecting the purchase intention for counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh.The survey questionnaire had different sections including the explanatory statement, generic questions about counterfeit products, questions about the product attributes and brand image, price-based questions, questions regarding the income and gender of the respondents followed by their socio-demographic information.Both open-ended and close-ended questions including multiple-choice questions was used.Besides, a 5-point Likert scale was used as a scaling technique.The pre-testing of the questionnaire was done on a sample of thirty respondents before commencing the final data collection.The respondents were requested to participate in the survey voluntarily.

Measures
The measurement scales for this study were adopted from the existing valid scales.Five items were considered to measure product attribute.The items were

Demographic analysis
The number of responses that were utilized in this analysis is 242.Appendix A shows the respondents' demographic profile.Here, the percentage of males is 51.24% and that of females is 48.76%.The ratio of both males and females was almost equal in the survey.The information of age shown in Appendix A represents that the respondents are roughly evenly distributed from 18 to 37 years old.In

Factor analysis
A factor analysis was conducted to find out the factors affecting the purchase intentions for counterfeit luxury goods..000 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test was used to identify how the data set is suited.KMO returns values between 0 and 1.According to the rule of thumb for interpreting the statistic, the value for the data set of this research is between 0.8 and 1, which indicates that the sampling is adequate.Also, Kaiser sets a measure according to which the value is between 0.8 and 0.89, and that says the result is significant.Again, Bartlett's test of sphericity shows that the study is significant as the value is <0.05.
The scree plot is a good method/option to choose the number of factors to be retained.From Figure 2, it is seen that the eigenvalues are more stable after the first six factors, which also suggested that extracting seven factors might be a reasonable choice for the purchase intention for the counterfeit luxury goods in Bangladesh.
Factor analysis has revealed that using six underlying factors, about 59% of variation of the dependent variable can be explained in lieu of 25 factors.
Pearson correlation analysis showed that dependent variable APD is positively correlated with all the variables considered in the study with different degrees.From the correlation matrix, it is also evident that all the variables are positively correlated with each other.This implies that the variables influence each other significantly.
From the estimated model, it is found that the included variables explain about 41 percent of the variation of the dependent variable APD, which indicates that the model is a good one.
The overall model is found significant at a level of 99%, which indicates that the independent variables have an effect on the dependent variable.
The p-values of the parameters imply that not all the variables have a significant influence.It is found that APA, ABI, and ALI have a significant effect on the dependent variable as they hold a p-val-

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATION
The study of counterfeit luxury goods consumption has received much attention from scholars, researchers, and policymakers during the past decades because it intensifies the tension of revenue loss to companies and ethical concerns to societies (Souiden et al., 2018).This study provides an insight regarding the factors affecting consumers' purchas intention for counterfeit luxury goods from the perspective of Bangladesh.It is essential for the marketers and industry players to understand the essential facts and which factors are expediting behind purchase intentions.The result of the study validates previous findings of product attribute, brand image and level of income on consumer purchase intention for counterfeit luxury items.The study indicates that price and gender have no relationship with counterfeit luxury purchasing.It assumes that price indicators are not significant for the customers, on the other hand, people are looking for product attribute and brand image.The outcomes of the study can aid to the genuine luxury brand manufacturers to better understand Bangladeshi customers' purchase intention for counterfeit products.Since inadequate penalties and weak enforcement of the respective laws and regulations have also been responsible for the expansion of counterfeit trade (Didiek, 2003), authentic luxury brand manufac-turers can employ substantial supply chain value, and different unique selling proposition for selling their original products.They can also distribute complementary items to promote their product sales.Moreover, value-based offerings can be the capitalized by the marketers to capture the low-income group (Qin et al., 2018).Besides, manufactures can evoke moral and ethical issues among the customers through engaging them in different social activities and programs to attract them toward the original products (Amar et al., 2018;Chen et al., 2018).Manufacturers of authentic luxury items can also introduce an extension of the existing brands to reduce the purchase intention for counterfeit items among the consumers (Butcher et al., 2018).

CONCLUSION
To conclude, it can be mentioned that this study has adopted various factors to measure the purchase intention of the Bangladeshi consumers for counterfeit products.Although counterfeit consumption is one of the major challenges that has been increasing extensively both in developing countries and in the rest of the world, previous studies focused only on the supply sides of the counterfeit luxury goods where the demand factors were yet to consider.Thus, this study has discovered some critical insights based on the different socio-economic and demographic factors that were not covered in the past research conducted on counterfeit products consumption in developing countries.This research has also presented different practical implications for the original brand marketers for a developing country like Bangladesh to ensure their product authenticity to Bangladeshi customer base.Original brand manufacturers are also suggested to focus on the product attributes, brand image, and level of income in designing their marketing strategies and plans rationally.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE AVENUES
There are some limitations on this study.Firstly, the study has adopted a cross-sectional research design, which could not confirm the causal evidence from the used variables.Secondly, this study has utilized only five factors as discussed earlier to measure the counterfeit luxury purchase decision making as it was expected to examine the impact only of these chosen factors on the purchase decision for the counterfeit luxury goods of the Bangladeshi consumers.Future research may take more variables to force the respondents to evaluate the different determining factors more reasonably and assist the researchers to find a more accurate result than before.Fourthly, data were taken from a small population, which limits the generalizability of the findings for other respondents.The findings of this study have raised some crucial insights regarding the purchase decision for counterfeit luxury goods, and they may be capitalized by replication with specific products and with a specific population.Research may be conducted on the product category wise including luxury goods, shopping products, and convenience products.Thus, it is expected that the afore-mentioned issues will validate the future research findings rationally through examining the influences of the different factors on their purchase decision for counterfeit luxury goods in a developing country.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Scree plot Note: a -Dependent variable: APD; b -Predictors: (Constant), AGN, APA, ABI, ALI, AP.APA = Average of Product Attribute, ABI = Average of Brand Image, AP = Average of Price, ALI = Average of Level of Income, AGEN = Average of Gender, APD = Average of Purchase Decision.

Table 2 .
Pearson correlation analysisNote: ** -Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed), N = 242.APA = Average of Product Attribute, ABI = Average of Brand Image, AP = Average of Price, ALI = Average of Level of Income, AGN = Average of Gender, APD = Average of Purchase Decision (Dependent Variable).

Table 3 .
Regression analysisNote: a. Predictors: (Constant), APA = Average of Product Attribute, ABI = Average of Brand Image, AP = Average of Price, ALI = Average of Level of Income, AGN = Average of Gender, APD = Average of Purchase Decision (Dependent Variable), N = 242.

Table 5 .
Coefficient Note: a -Dependent variable: APD = Average of Purchase Decision.