The study was conducted online and used Gucci as the luxury brand. A message was posted to several directly related online forums and fashion blogs (e.g. www.thegummysweet.com) to reach a wide range of consumers who are interested in and who know enough luxury brands, but the message was not limited to actual luxury brand consumers. It explained the purpose of the research and provided a link to the questionnaire. Only actual and potential consumers of Gucci wereretained;thus,32consumerswereexcludedbecausethey admittedtoonlybuyingcounterfeits.Aconveniencesampleof 693 adult consumers was selected. The sample can be characterised as follows: 209 men (30.16 per cent) and 484 women (69.84 per cent), with an average age of 34 (SD 10.18). Fifty-eight per cent of respondents are potential consumers of the original brand, 31 per cent are actual consumers and 11 per cent are hybrid consumers[2].