3Qs: Buying into the knockoff factor?
Retail titans Apple, Nike and Ikea have to compete with impostor replicas of their retail stores that have popped up in the southern district of Kunming city in southwest China and other parts of the world. These stores hawk knockoff products to sometimes unknowing customers. Tony Gao, an assistant professor of marketing in Northeastern’s College of Business Administration, interprets the broader implications to consumer welfare, intellectual property rights protection and how these competitive behaviors affect international marketing.
