Gen Z is the 'dupe' generation

When Ella Lin was in middle school, her clothes had to be name brands or they were "uncool." Now that she's in college, she and her friends proudly buy dupes of trendy brands.

"We go shopping a lot at the mall, and then we'll find something really cute. Then we look at the price tag and then we'll be like, 'Oh, we should find a dupe for that,'" she told Business Insider. 

Lin likes Aritzia, Lululemon, Urban Outfitters, and Brandy Melville, so she looks for dupes similar to those brands.

The 19-year-old reveals her dupe finds on TikTok. She'll film her latest find, like a $37 Aritzia sweatshirt dupe or a $29 Skims bodysuit dupe, artfully thrown on her bed and set the video to a song by Taylor Swift or Bouba Savage.

"A few years ago, it was uncool to have dupes, but I feel like TikTok and Amazon have normalized it," Lin said. "It just proves that you don't have to have the most expensive clothes or brand names to be fashionable or to express yourself."

Lin is part of the generation that grew up online. Gen Zers are not fans of paying full price. Instead, they revel in finding less expensive alternatives for popular products.

In fact, Gen Z prefers knockoffs more than other generations, Business Insider found.

BI, in collaboration with YouGov, conducted a survey this summer of more than 1,800 Americans spanning five generations about their values and preferences. Over 70% of Gen Zers we surveyed said they sometimes or always buy less expensive knockoffs of more expensive name-brand products.

Gen Zers were born between 1997 and 2012, making them anywhere from 11 to 26 years old, but only those 18 and over were included in BI's survey.

Cashing in on dupes

Younger consumers with tighter budgets have always been interested in getting a bargain. But TikTok, Amazon, and fast-fashion retailers like Shein have supercharged the trend.

Amazon and TikTok declined to comment on the record for this story. Shein did not respond to a request for comment.

Sixty-one percent of Gen Zers said they used TikTok most often to find dupes, according to a survey of 3,000 millennial and GenZ consumers from the US, the UK, and Italy conducted by the consumer-review platform Trustpilot.

Videos tagged #dupe have garnered more than 5.9 billion views. And those views lead to real sales.

Take, for example, the leggings from the little-known brand CRZ Yoga, which sells products on Amazon. TikTokers swear its $27 leggings are exactly the same as Lululemon's $100 Align leggings. CRZ Yoga sells over 80,000 pairs a month, according to data from the e-commerce analytics firm Jungle Scout published on Reuters.

Now, TikTok can sell the product that it helps go viral.

TikTok Shop, the platform's new in-app shopping feature, allows users to buy products directly from a creator's video.

Lin, the TikToker, mostly shops for dupes on Amazon, she said. "In the search bar, you can type in 'Aritzia dupe,' 'Lululemon dupe,' and then the top brands that make those dupes will show up, and they're usually really highly rated," she said.

But she's warming to TikTok Shop, too. "Every video I scrolled kind of felt like an ad to me, but I've gotten used to it," she said. "There's such good deals on there every day."

Ellyn Briggs, a brand analyst at the research company Morning Consult, recently turned her excessive scrolling on TikTok into a report on dupe culture and Gen Z.

"A product going viral is an important factor when they're considering whether or not to purchase that product," Briggs told Insider.

Culturally, counterfeits are taboo — most people who buy them don't want others to know that their designer duds are a fraud. However, finding these new look-alike products carries unique cachet, like discovering the next great indie artist before they go mainstream or dining at a buzzy restaurant before it develops a three-month wait list.

"It's become a point of pride almost for young people to say, 'I found this dupe that's just as good as this more expensive product,'" Briggs said.

"This target audience views dupes as a badge of honor and so they intentionally buy the dupes, but they also mix them with name brands," Jacqueline Babb, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, said. "I don't think it's an economic decision. I think it's an intentional kind of curation."

The dupe generation is disloyal

Gen Z's fascination with dupes is changing consumerism as we know it.

Saving money is the No. 1 reason people buy these products. Morning Consult's survey found that 49% of these shoppers reported an annual household income of under $50,000, and 67% of those consumers said saving money was a major factor when considering buying a dupe.

Morning Consult data found that Gen Z is more likely to try new apparel, beauty, and electronics brands than other generations.

"It speaks to a broader trend that Gen Z is very brand disloyal," Briggs said. "It's easy to catch Gen Z's attention, harder to earn their loyalty."

The second reason people buy dupes is for the thrill of testing them out, Morning Consult found.

"That suggests that there's sort of a bit of a gamification going on or an interest from consumers in testing and learning on their own," Briggs said. "It's added a layer of intrigue or proactivity from the consumer."

Another part of the trend unique to Gen Z is the type of brand commonly copied. Briggs said that rather than luxury brands, it's the midrange brands such as Lululemon, Skims, Ugg, Aritzia, and Charlotte Tilbury.

Babb said that's because those who buy these copied products don't typically fall within these brands' target demographics.

"For the most part, the type of people who buy a dupe are not the same people that want the name brand," she said. "Somebody who really wants Uggs wants Uggs because they want the Ugg name on their foot and not because they want a shearling boot with the plush inside."

But Gen Z will spend money on certain brands like Nike or Canada Goose and will even wear these brand names along with their dupes. This points to a set of values that are unique to this generation.

"Gen Z has an affinity for brands with a purpose, and so they do want to spend money with brands like Patagonia," Babb said. "Gen Z wants to use their consumer dollars toward brands that match their values."

And perhaps some brands, like Nike or Apple, are just more difficult and risky to replicate.

"If it's proprietary and there's a patent on it, that's going to be much harder for other companies to go in and duplicate or rip off," Colin Campbell, a marketing professor at the University of San Diego, said. "It's legally more dubious as well, too, because there is the Nike swoosh on it, so if you're duplicating that, you're technically breaking trademark laws."

Dupes cause little damage to brands, for now

Dupes have the potential to become a permanent trend, Campbell said.

"People just are starting to become better consumers and realize that there is a premium for brands," he said. "In some cases, they don't necessarily want to pay that premium."

For some brands, these product clones provide a unique angle to sell products that might already appeal to Gen Z.

Take E.l.f. Cosmetics, which launched in 2004. It started selling cheaper versions of popular beauty products long before it became a go-to dupe brand on TikTok. Today, several videos compare E.l.f.'s products to more expensive brands. For example, a Charlotte Tilbury blush wand costs $42, while a similar one from E.l.f. costs $9.

The demand for dupes has also spawned new brands like Quince. The online fashion retailer markets itself as an affordable, sustainable alternative to luxury brands by producing garments in many of the same factories as its competitors. For example, it sells a nearly identical version of Dagne Dover's neoprene backpack for $99, compared to $195. Quince also sells a tiered maxi dress for $130 that closely resembles Anthropologie's $220 Somerset maxi dress.

While Quince doesn't explicitly call out the brand names it mimics, it sometimes hints at its references on social media. The company called its $70 pair of cork-sole sandals "Barbie approved," referencing the Barbie movie's Birkenstock scene.

Quince uses a manufacturer-to-customer model, similar to Shein's, though Antonieta Moreland, the head of brand at Quince, said the company is positioning itself as an anti-fast-fashion brand.

"There's a lot of places that make inexpensive things and for inexpensive prices, but not a lot of places are making very quality, high-end things for inexpensive prices," she said.

Since Quince's model doesn't rely on holding inventory at distribution centers, it allows the company to react quickly to trends. For example, when Ugg's moccasin slippers began trending, Quince produced its own version ahead of the fall season.

So should Ugg and other brands worry about companies like Quince? Probably not, Briggs said.

Dupes are good for the brand doing the duping and the brand being duped. Brands that are frequently copied are more well-known and viewed more favorably by consumers on TikTok, Morning Consult found.

"Purchase consideration was higher for those brands among TikTok users, versus all US adults," Briggs said.

Some brands have been able to shrug off duping or use it to their advantage. Take Lululemon's "dupe swap" or the hair-care brand Olaplex using influencers to market a fake product called OlaDupé. These moves likely didn't convert dupe shoppers but propped up their loyal customer base.

"I think the dupe people are not Lululemon's market," Babb said. "I don't think they ever will be. So if you're Lululemon, what you're really trying to capitalize on is the buzz around leggings for your target audience."

But it could eventually lead young shoppers on a path to purchase luxury items once they have the means, Briggs continued.

"Our data shows that there's little damage that's being done right now to either side," Briggs said. "So I don't think we're taking away from the luxury brand's bottom line in a massive way at the moment."

Lin, the TikToker, agrees.

"The dupe is a good gateway to see if you like the product," she said. said. "Or if you think it's going to go out of style or you won't like it in a year, then a dupe is a more financially responsible choice to make."