Social media has become popular in both business and research as many studies have explored the impact of this medium on the purchase behavior of consumers but surprisingly not in the domain of counterfeiting. Social media has become a significant part of today's lifestyle and it has created new channels for brand manufacturers and consumers to communicate. The present study tries to assess the impact of social media determinants on counterfeit purchase intention. The study explored three factors of social media namely social media platform, user-generated content, and social media word of mouth. Further, the study checks for the mediation effect of consumer attitude between social media determinants and purchase intention. The data for the present study were collected from three metropolitan cities of India namely Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. The PLS-SEM was used on 406 respondents for further analysis and validation. The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between social media platforms, user-generated content, and purchase intention. However, an insignificant relationship was found between social media word of mouth and purchase intention. Further, the study suggested that attitude mediates the relationship between social media determinants and the purchase intention of consumers towards the purchase of counterfeit products in India.

• Ritu Raj(National Institute of Technology Silchar, India)
• Saurabh Verma(National Institute of Technology Silchar, India)
• Sunil Kumar Yadav(Institute of Technology and Science, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), India)