With the rise of cheap knock-off items on commerce sites, brand equity has become harder to obtain and more important than ever.

It used to be you had to find a shady street vendor to find a knock-off version of a high-end luxury brand item, but dupes are openly sold on the internet these days — and it raises interesting questions about the value of branding when cheaper lookalikes are so readily available.

Dupes can be found on TikTok haul videos (influencers showing off the great clothing “hauls” they recently acquired), on Reddit threads and on Instagram. The appeal of a dupe is straightforward: the items are cheaper, and they look almost indistinguishable from the real thing. For consumers with champagne taste but beer budgets, dupes are the perfect purchase decision.

Affordability was the primary motivator for consumers who buy them, according to a recent survey conducted by purchase data platform Attain. More than half (59 percent) of consumers cited affordability as the main reason for buying dupes. Product quality was the second most popular answer, with a third (36 percent) of respondents selecting it as a factor in their dupe purchasing. Curiosity (13 percent) and trendiness (6 percent) were less popular motivators.

Having dupes sold across so many different social media and retail platforms has driven their popularity. Social media is the most popular destination for dupe discovery, with 59 percent of consumers saying they go to social platforms to find lookalikes of their favorite brand names. Online marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay, were a close second, with 45 percent of survey respondents saying they use ecommerce channels for dupe shopping.

The popularity of dupes on ecommerce makes sense since the sites lend themselves to comparison shopping. A consumer looking for new shoes on Amazon can see seemingly endless options to buy, and instead of shelling out for the pricey brand name, they can buy the cheaper duplicate option.

Fashion is the most popular category for dupe shopping, with nearly a third (32 percent) of survey respondents reporting they buy cheap look alike clothing items. The beauty (29 percent) and accessory items (25 percent) are also popular dupe categories.

The prevalence of dupes presents a challenge for name brands that want to justify their high price tags.

Brand names will be just fine, according to Larry Vincent, professor of marketing at the University of Southern California. Vincent encourages marketers to remember that not all consumers are the same. Sure, some shoppers may want a cheaper knock-off version.

Many shoppers buy brand-name items specifically because they are expensive. The brand name denotes a certain level of quality that a dupe can’t, and with so many low-quality dupe products on the market, brands that sell high-quality goods, even at a high cost, are able to differentiate themselves to shoppers.

Indeed, the majority of consumers (58 percent) would prefer a brand name item over its dupe, according to the Attain survey.

Young consumers are more skeptical of dupes, Vincent says. “They find that whatever is the lowest price, or at the top of the search results in Amazon, is often low quality. They are much more scrutinizing,” he says. “We’re starting to see a little more skepticism around these purchase decisions.”

In the land of dupes, the high-quality brand remains king.