De’yon Smith | Counterfeits: Consumers’ Journey: An interactive business case study

 
This project documents the relationship between consumers and their journey to purchase counterfeit goods. Counterfeit products have lost their sanctioned authenticity which makes a counterfeit worth less in the marketplace than an authentic product, and counterfeits continue to lose value as they lose more of the quality characteristics of authentic products. I illustrated some of these distinctions for counterfeit luxury products. Observing and documenting economic and social models of the counterfeit market and related business case studies, I built a website that is a visually lively and informational platform on which users can learn by participating in an interactive case study experience. The project is intended to be used in a business course by faculty who wish to explain the counterfeit market’s experience for consumers and its impact on the global economy.
Historical and cultural roots have influenced the creation of the counterfeit market that has in turn shaped the global economy. It has become a global, nearly trillion-dollar market. Based on the scholarship of Jie Chen and Pur Purwanto, as well as comparisons between intellectual property rights policies in place for international brands, this project elaborates on luxury brands’ positions in the counterfeit market and showcases the thought process behind a consumer’s decision to purchase a counterfeit good.
The project is in the form of a website that is an online business case. Navigation is based on narrative and thought-provoking questions for the user. In a section about the design of counterfeit leather goods, side-by-side images train the user’s ability to recognize and distinguish the differences between counterfeit and authentic luxury leather goods. Users are shown how to identify distinct features such as link spacing, leather quality, designs, and trims to determine the authenticity of leather products. Another section on the distribution network informs users about e-commerce platforms’ distribution cycle for counterfeit products. The market-specific strategies of retail and wholesale vendors are relevant to the prosperous selling of luxury leather counterfeits. A sequence of charts, graphs, and displays are used to visually demonstrate relationships between consumers and distribution. The online case teaches users about the counterfeit market, and also offers a prompted comment page for users to reflect and express their perspective on the market and their experience with it.