Counterfeiting has been on a high increase all over the world. It is a vice that has found an environment to thrive among the African countries where there exists weak intellectual property enforcement regimes. The loss due to counterfeiting has been enormous especially to the manufacturing sectors in Africa. These companies have emerged and grown despite the challenges imposed by counterfeiting.

The purpose of this research was to analyze the factors that influence consumers to engage in counterfeit purchases. The findings from this research are expected to inform policy makers about consumer attitudes in regard to counterfeiting and to identify possible strategies that can be used to combat counterfeiting. A cross sectional survey research design was used. Questionnaires were given to a target group of 200 respondents from Nairobi County. The sampling method used was stratified random sampling.

The major contribution of this research paper is to show that that the consumer’s choice to engage in counterfeit purchasing is highly influenced by certain factors. These factors include the price of the product, unavailability of the genuine, reference groups and perceived risk. It brings out the link between counterfeiting and the various factors identified. The main practical implication of this paper is to inform policy makers and the government of Kenya about the main predictor variables of consumer’s attitudes towards counterfeiting. As such awareness campaigns can be geared towards bringing out the perceived risk about counterfeiting since this approach is likely to catch the attention of the consumers.