A Case Study on Consumer Behavior and Knockoff Purchases in Online Marketplaces

By Nathan Hadi

When I ordered the Temu pillow cover featuring my mother’s artwork, I expected it to be obviously inferior — flimsy fabric, blurry print, uneven stitching. Instead, it arrived in surprisingly good condition, comparable in quality to the legitimate Redbubble version. This experience highlighted a critical aspect of consumer behavior: when a product appears to offer similar utility at a lower price, buyers often focus on perceived value, rarely noticing the hidden costs borne by creators. Many shoppers unknowingly choose knockoffs not out of malice, but because the signals of originality and ethical sourcing are largely invisible.

Price and Perceived Value

Side by side with the Redbubble version, the Temu pillow looked nearly identical. For a buyer, the cheaper option felt rational — a simple choice based on visible benefits. In economic terms, shoppers respond to perceived utility, often prioritizing cost savings over less visible considerations, like whether the product is ethically sourced or supports an artist.

Authenticity Isn’t Obvious

Unlike a designer handbag, a pillow cover doesn’t carry signals that indicate authenticity. Few buyers stop to question whether a design is licensed because the social or functional cues just aren’t there. The ethical dimension of the purchase is effectively invisible, and many make the choice without considering any potential harm.

Influence of Reviews and Popularity

Online marketplaces amplify this effect. High review counts and “bestseller” labels serve as shortcuts for trust — people assume that if others have bought it and liked it, it must be legitimate. This mirrors patterns in consumer behavior where social proof guides decisions, particularly when other cues like brand or authenticity are weak.

Invisible Costs to Creators

For buyers, the cost seems limited to the price tag. What’s unseen is the economic and creative toll on the artist: lost sales, reduced recognition, and the broader signal it sends that theft can be profitable. This is a form of negative externality, where the consequences of a transaction are borne by someone outside the exchange, in this case, the original creator.

Lessons for Artists and Platforms

If most buyers are unaware, the solution isn’t to guilt them but it’s to make authenticity visible and valuable:

• Storytelling: Share the human story behind the design.

• Direct connection: Engage buyers so purchases support real creators.

• Signals of trust: Highlight verified, original products in ways that knockoffs cannot replicate.

Reflection

This journey has taught me that the theft of digital art isn’t just an ethical problem — it’s an economic one. In Intro to Microeconomics, we learn how consumers make choices based on utility and price, often overlooking negative externalities. That is exactly what I saw with Temu: buyers focused on the value of a $5 pillow without realizing the hidden cost to the artist whose design was stolen. Similarly, the knockoffs highlighted issues of imperfect information, since most consumers didn’t even know they were purchasing unauthorized designs.

On the Macroeconomics side, I began to see how these small, individual choices scale into larger distortions in international trade and labor markets. Platforms like Temu rely on global supply chains and lax enforcement, creating a race to the bottom that erodes trust in legitimate creative industries. It reminded me of lessons on market failures and the difficulty of regulation in a globalized economy.

Looking forward, I believe this problem will only intensify in the AI era. If digital theft already undercuts creators when production requires factories and human labor, what happens when AI tools can generate “dupes” instantly, at near-zero cost? The economic incentives to exploit original works will only grow, raising urgent questions about how markets — and laws — must adapt.

This is why I aspire to study business, economics, and their intersection with law: to better understand these dynamics and ultimately help design systems that protect creativity while still encouraging innovation.