An Empirical Study on the Relationship between Product Involvement, Brand Image, and Consumer Purchase Intention for Counterfeited Luxury Product: a perspective of Bangladesh

Counterfeiting has become a significant phenomenon across the world. Luxury product market is one of the main victims of counterfeiting. Though many studies have been conducted to find out the behavioral pattern of consumer‘s, the effect of branding on counterfeits has largely been neglected. Bangladesh, an emerging market in Asia, is not free from the availability of counterfeited luxury branded products. This research seeks to examine, for the first time in the context of Bangladesh, the relationship between product involvement, brand image and consumer purchase intention of counterfeited luxury branded product. The current study tests the conceptual model and hypotheses
developed based on existing literature. Conceptual model and the hypotheses are tested using correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses with survey data from 200 undergraduate students of Bangladesh. The result reveals that product involvement is not significantly influencing consumer purchase intention of counterfeits. However, brand image is more dominant to influence consumer purchase intention of counterfeited luxury branded product. The research findings has limitation as only one brand of product category (sunglass) has been used for this study although that still makes the research findings significant. This research finding will help the academicians and
practitioners of Bangladesh and the luxury brands producing countries to identify the factors responsible for the consumer proneness for counterfeited luxury brands. It will also encourage the researchers to conduct more studies in the context of Bangladesh regarding counterfeiting which is yet quite an unexplored field of study.