Beyond Price and Status: Understanding the Context-Dependent Motivations Behind Luxury Counterfeit Consumption

Luxury counterfeit consumption is often explained through individual motivations such as price, status seeking, or ethical attitudes. However, evidence across consumer groups and markets suggests that no single factor fully explains why consumers choose counterfeit luxury products. This study examines why consumers purchase luxury counterfeits and how the relative importance of these motivations varies across markets and consumer groups. Through a comparative review of academic research, the study synthesizes evidence concerning economic and value-related considerations, social identity and status, moral evaluations, perceived risk, information, and psychological mechanisms. The findings indicate that economic and value-related considerations recur across the reviewed literature, while the importance of social, moral, informational, and psychological factors varies according to consumer and market context. Evidence from Brazil, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, and broader cross-market research illustrates these differences. The comparison suggests that apparently inconsistent findings across studies may reflect differences in populations, constructs, and research environments rather than a single contradiction in the literature. The study therefore argues that luxury counterfeit consumption is best understood as a multidimensional and context-dependent consumer phenomenon. This perspective has implications for luxury-brand strategy, consumer-choice analysis, and public policy, particularly by highlighting the need to consider both demand-side motivations and the institutional environments in which counterfeit markets operate.