Shaun Rein writes at Business Week:
My firm, The China Market Research Group (CMR), conducted one-on-one interviews with consumers in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing. We found that consumers prefer to buy genuine articles if they can afford to pay for them. The majority of aspiring respondents said that they are buying some real products and then completing an ensemble with fakes.
Many young women making $400 a month said that they are willing to save three months of salary to buy a thousand-dollar Gucci (GUC) handbag or shoes from Bally. One 23-year-old female respondent said, "Right now I can't afford to buy a lot of real Prada or Coach (COH), so I buy the fake items. I hope that in the future I will be able to afford the real thing, but right now I want to look the part."
A 27-year-old woman working at a multinational admitted that she did buy fakes but said, "If you wear a lot of fake clothing or have a lot of counterfeit bags, your friends will know, so you are not fooling anybody. It is better to have the real thing." As long as companies make an effort to develop the cachet of their brands, they do not need to worry about pirates making copies of their products.
To read more:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2007/gb20070620_006304.htm
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