Will Consumers Knock Off Buying Lululemon Dupes After Wearing The Real Thing?

Buying knockoff goods may carry a stigma for some consumers, but not Gen Zers. They are not only unbothered buying duplicates (AKA dupes) of brand-name goods, they have begun celebrating knockoffs on social media. Lululemon recently tested a strategy to beat this customer affinity for knockoffs of its apparel—by organizing an event where customers could trade in their dupes for the real deal.

Lululemon recently hosted a “Dupe Swap” at its location in the Century City Mall in Los Angeles, encouraging people who had lookalikes of their popular Align pants to trade them for the genuine article, Fast Company reported.

Events like Lululemon’s Dupe Swap stand to bring customers—possibly even some who are only familiar with the knockoff products—into the store and to ideally let them recognize the superiority of the branded product. Lululemon is pursuing this tact as popular TikTok influencers have promoted Lululemon lookalikes at much lower prices, sometimes getting hundreds of thousands of views.

 

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Since dupes of products do not infringe on trademarks (like counterfeit goods), even mainstream outlets like Shape have pointed thrifty shoppers to the products as a way to enjoy Lululemon style without a Lululemon price tag. Amazon.com, which has had its own controversies over how it does or does not use information about its marketplace sellers to inform its private-label designs, is a popular online destination for Lululemon lookalikes.

Lululemon could be experiencing a higher rate of knockoffs than other brands due to its popularity. The retailer was a standout success during the novel coronavirus pandemic, partly because of the drastically increased number of people working from home, leading to more customers purchasing athleisure wear.

The brand has continued to perform well, reporting strong holiday quarterly sales and offering upbeat guidance for fiscal 2023, CNBC reported in March.

Not every move Lululemon has bet on has panned out. Its acquisition of home fitness hardware brand Mirror proved to be a costly mistake as interest in home workouts waned with the reopening of gyms. In April, Lululemon was looking to sell off Mirror to competitor Hydrow.