Counterfeiting And Conspicuous Consumption Trends In Modern Chinese Society

In order to choose a relevant field for my research, I focused my initial investigations on identifying international business sectors that provide a promising offer to Chinese domestic consumers with high potential for future growth, but also exhibit unique trends and suffer from clear obstacles. By selecting a large and growing sector, my research would be applicable to a greater number of companies; while focusing on unique trends and flaws in the sector would ensure that the research provides results that are both relevant and highly valued. After carefully considering a number of options, I chose to proceed with selecting the luxury market as my field of focus. This is due to a number of important observations, all of which satisfy my aforementioned requirements for an ideal research topic:■The global luxury market is dominated by Western brand companies■China has already become a major consumer of luxury products■China’s luxury consumption is predicted to grow rapidly in the near future■China suffers from rampant counterfeiting; a clear obstacle to luxury brands■Chinese luxury consumers exhibit behaviors and consumption patterns that differ greatly from those of Western luxury consumers; a unique trend to be addressedIn order to define a specific topic within the field of luxury products, I thought back on my previous experience living in China and critically assessed the various observations I had made regarding this field from a business strategy point-of-view. From my first-hand experience, I knew that the counterfeit market was huge and that the primary consumers were young consumers who knew of popular luxury brands and their associated prestige value, but were either unable or unwilling to purchase the genuine item. Sometimes the counterfeit products are clearly an imitation at first glance, exhibiting poor craftsmanship or even misspelling the brand name and other obvious errors; however, there also exist high-grade counterfeit products that appear genuine at first glance and only careful scrutiny is able to reveal their replica status. By critically assessing my first-hand observations, I was able to refine my research project hypothesis into a complex but clear postulation that, due to the overwhelming number of counterfeit luxury products available in China, one could expect that the prestige value of the genuine luxury product is greatly diminished in the eyes of the Chinese consumer. Therefore, I hypothesized that many Chinese consumers avoid purchasing the genuine articles of commonly imitated brands and styles due to the fact that such products can be seen everywhere on the street and are therefore no longer viewed as exclusive. It should follow then, that another concern for many Chinese consumers is that, even if they purchase the genuine article, no one else will believe that it is in fact the real luxury brand item.In order to test my hypothesis, I have carried out original field research in the form of a market research surveys. To collect primary data I developed a ten-question survey aimed at gathering data relevant to all aspects of my hypothesis. Due to the market-focused nature of the hypothesis, the construction of this survey followed a "market research" format in order to determine the underlying needs, values and motivations of modern Chinese luxury consumers. Also included in the survey were questions pertaining to the recent phenomenon of conspicuous consumption online, which should provide insight as to how luxury brands can leverage social media to develop new forms of targeted advertising that also serve to increase demand for genuine luxury products.I conclude that the survey results support my hypothesis that many Chinese consumers avoid purchasing the genuine articles of commonly imitated brands and styles due to the fact that such products are no longer viewed as exclusive, thus creating a concern for potential genuine item consumers. The results of my research provide a basis for developing new strategic marketing tools that should prove invaluable for brand companies seeking to harness China’s conspicuous consumption trends while effectively neutralizing demand for counterfeit goods.