WHAT TO CHECK FOR BEFORE YOU PLACE A BID

Buying designer brand clothing is very safe when you shop in person at a traditional retail store. If you go to a Ralph Lauren store for example, or any major Department Store that stocks Ralph Lauren, you can be quite confident that the product on sale is genuine merchandise. For further peace of mind, you also know you can take it back to the store if there is a problem with quality, etc. The store will still be there tomorrow, & you can expect that the staff to be understanding if you have a genuine reason for bringing the purchase back.

Unfortunately, you really cannot enjoy the same confidence when buying designer brand clothing from sellers on Ebay. I have been ripped off (there is no point being delicate about it...) by numerous sellers selling me quite obvious fake, poor quality clothes described as designer label product. It has got to the point where I am now quite skeptical about buying such clothes off Ebay.

Yet I have not stopped entirely. I have just become very careful about finding sellers who I trust enough to buy from. I think you can sometimes buy designer clothes off Ebay at auction for a bargain price. But also I believe there are a great many sellers on Ebay that are knowingly selling fakes.

Here are my tips on what to check before you bid on an auction:

1. Check the sellers feedback.

If they have low feedback (say less than 50) think twice at least. People who sell fakes typically get start to get negative feedback very fast. Some buyers will be helpful enough to report that the goods they received were bad quality. Sellers of fakes tend to give up when they receive several negatives, as they know they will not trap many more victims in. Unfortunately they often then just rejoin Ebay, get a new ID, & start again. That is why I am wary of new sellers as a general rule...

If the seller has any negative feedback scroll through & see what the complaint was. Don't just think Oh they only have 1 negative out of 30 feedbacks so I won't bother. If you see the negative feedback was left for a good reason you will be glad you checked before you bid. So have a look, & check if it was because the item was not as described... And if a buyer tells you plainly that the goods they received were fake then don't spend a cent with that seller.

If the seller claims to be within the country, but the goods have arrived from overseas this is another real alarm bell. When this is the case, buyers tend to complain in their feedback that delivery took weeks, or that the parcel arrived from somewhere overseas (such as China) & not from within the country, as promised.

If the seller is from a third world country forget it. Alot of designer label fashion really is produced in poorer countries like China, Guam, the Phillipines, etc, but so are 99% of the worlds fakes. And that is what you should expect to get for your money - a fake. Realise that if you buy from an overseas member that you will be unable to pursue them if you get ripped off. (Within Australia you have at least some opportunity for protection under the law. Once you go offshore... forget it).

If the seller has made their feedback private don't buy from them. This is usually done I believe to prevent buyers from reading honest complaints from disappointed customers. As we all know, most sellers do get a negative feedback from somebody eventually (deserved, or undeserved). But they don't hide all their feedback because of an isolated comment.

2. Some items are particularly attractive to counterfeiters

Counterfeiters love to knock off copies of small, expensive designer items. Items of clothing that are relatively small in size are relatively cheap to produce, as the cost for materials is low. And if it is a designer or luxury item, the retail price on the item can be very high.

Burberry scarves are a good example. A genuine Burberry scarf sells for hundreds of dollars. If you can sell a few dozens fakes that cost you a few dollars each for even $50-$100 you can make a very good profit. (You only have to spend a few minutes writing an ad for Ebay. Then you relist the same ad, over & over, as you sell the item. It it very easy to do...)

Men's underwear by Calvin Klein is another classic target. I am sure half the Calvin Klein undies sold on Ebay will fall apart the first time you wash them.

Tiffany jewellery (not exactly clothing, I know, but the principle fits) is another item that gets ripped off alot in the same manner. People love Tiffany jewellery. So it gets copied. Louis Vuitton bags are another clear target...

Men's ties are an another excellent example. How much does a little strip of printed silk cost. Compare that to what you can get for it on Ebay if you sell it as a genuine Burberry or  Hugo Boss tie? The profit is ridiculous against the actual cost.

Have a look at any shop selling designer ties. If they are selling several different brands, yet the ties all have the same kind of name tag on the back they are clearly fakes. I once compared my Hugo Boss tie to those sold by one seller before bidding on their auction. My real HB tie had a totally different brand tag to the ones on his ties. And the tag on his Hermes tie looked just like the tag on his Hugo Boss ties. But it didn't look anything like the brand tag on my genuine Hermes tie. So I didn't bid on these auctions of course.

It is a very good idea to compare brand tags & other features on genuine designer merchandise you already own to the same features on the goods being sold by a seller before you consider bidding. If the features are totally different I would always doubt the goods are genuine.

This leads to another point.

3. If a sellers products all have similar looking tags, packaging, etc, but are for completely different brands, then they are fake. 

A good example I once came across of this was sellers of socks. This seller was selling Versace business socks and Nike sports socks (along with several other brands). The two products both had exactly the same packaging right down to the colors printed on the packets. Only the names Versace & Nike were different...

Fashion houses do not use the same packaging. They all spend a fortune on marketing & branding for their products so they look different.

4. Are there alot of people selling this one product?

Sometimes it is just commonsense to be suspicious about things. If the item is supposed to be an exclusive designer product, and there are half a dozen sellers on Ebay flogging it at a fraction of the normal price, you have to wonder what is going on... Why would the manufacturer be suppyling these people to sell it at such a low price? The answer is: they wouldn't.

The manufacturers of designer goods have far too important a relationship with their retail outlets that they would jeopardise them in this way, selling to outsiders.

It is more likely that the product being sold en masse on Ebay was targeted by a counterfeiter, & now they are trying to move their stockpile of fake product...

5. Is the picture of the actual item.

I wouldn't buy a suit  from a seller who uses a picture of a model wearing an Armani suit walking down a catwalk at some European fashion parade. How do I know the suit I am going to get will look anything like that? That photo could have come from anywhere...

It is a simple process to cut & paste pictures from another website on the internet. Anybody can very easily lift a picture off the net, & then just paste it onto their auction.

For this reason I generally prefer pictures of the actual item (even if the photography is a bit fuzzy & daggy).

If you want to verify that the seller actually has taken the photo, & not just copied an image off the web, you can always ask them to send a closeup of some particular feature of the garment. In my experience, asking for this often also indicates if they are friendly / helpful, & are going to be good to deal with.

But please don't do this unless you might actually bid - why waste somebody's time. You wouldn't appreciate them wasting yours...

6. It depends on the label

It seems that world famous labels, & particularly, fashion "icon" items tend to be heavily targeted by the manufacturers of fakes.

Ralph Lauren polo shirts are a perfect example. Just take a look at how many people sell them...

Calvin Klein underwear, & Diesel jeans are 2 other products that just have far too many sellers.

It is just obvious that these sellers can't all be selling genuine merchandise. A good number of them must be selling the poor quality fakes that are being pumped out in huge numbers in asian factories.

But basically, any popular item produced by a famous international label seems to be a good target for clothing counterfeiters. They can make a cheap fake, & then sell it across the entire world.

7. If in doubt, ask the seller about their merchandise

If you have doubts about the authenticity of an item ask the seller directly - is this item genuine?

You only have to say you were ripped of by another seller when you bought a very similar item recently. So now you are reluctant to bid without checking on this first...

They will understand, as they know this happens with fashion all the time on Ebay.

8. Pay by Paypal whenever possible.

If you get ripped off, and you paid by Paypal, you can file a complaint with Paypal to get a refund (for purchases up to $1500). If the seller has told you the item is genuine, or their auction states this, you have more than enough grounds for asking for your money back.

Know that this claim system is not foolproof either, however. I used it once & was told by Paypal my refund claim was successful (it took about 2 weeks to be processed). However they could only recover half of what I had spent, as this was the balance of funds the seller had sitting in their Paypal account.

Paypal would try to recover the rest from the seller they said. But unfortunately that never happened...

Still, a half refund was better than nothing. And this seller got booted off both Paypal & Ebay because they failed to co-operate with the claim process (ie. to pay up on the rest of my refund).

9. My simplest preventative advice - smaller designer labels are less of a target.

I tend to buy clothes by smaller labels instead as I believe they are not targeted much by counterfeiters. Clothes from local labels like Country Road, Saba, Zambelli, etc are probably very likely to be genuine as they are not famous enough for the counterfeiters to bother to copy, because they can't sell them around the world. The brands are just not famous enough... 

So I tend stick to shopping for items from smaller labels. You are much less likely to get a fake.

10. What if you really have to have it?

I don't often go for big international names, unless the seller looks so reliable (check their feedback) you would take a chance on them. And I really want them item...

So how do I choose to bid or not?

I would usually trust a seller who has been around for several years, & has feedback in the hundreds, or over 99% positive.

It is impossible to last for years on Ebay with excellent feedback (we are talking 98.5% minimum) if you are in the habit of ripping people off. So that is usually a very good sign a seller is honest and reliable.

What if they are a newer member...

I might ask them a few things, such as I have mentioned above in this guide. If they respond quickly & they provide the information I have asked, for that usually helps reassure me. Accepting payment by Paypal is another positive. (But I would probably bid less on their item than I would with an older member. Sorry, I just feel there is more risk with newer members).

11. Always remember that a seller can disappear from Ebay in a second

They are not like traditional stores, that rarely just pack up & disappear over night. You can very easily lose your money to a bad seller. Fashion particularly seems to attract shonky sellers because of the huge volume of fakes that get produced. These sellers only have to be in business a short time to offload a good pile of their fake stock, collect all the money, and disappear.

Remember too, they are breaking the law. So it helps that they can pop up & vanish very quickly using the platform that Ebay provides. (Again, a strong argument for buying from members who have been around for more than 12 months!)

When you buy clothes on ebay always assume that you won't be able to return it - because that is the likely truth. So you have to ask yourself "How much do I trust this seller, & therefore how much am I willing to risk giving them to buy this item". 

I hope this guide helps you shop for designer fashion safely on Ebay.

TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THIS GUIDE IF YOU FOUND IT HELPFUL. IT MIGHT HELP THEM TOO!