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Why The Counterfeit Sneaker Business Is Booming
Before I was born, my dad and mom went to China. This was years ago. Even back then China had MAD ripoff designer items. They had a whole market for it in fact. Like no joke. You can go through markets a mile long loaded with this stuff these days in any Asian country. There are Chinese people in places like NYC that sell them out the back of their car trunks and a lot of them look legit. It is crazy.
Yup. I’ve been to Guangzhou & can confirm that they got AAA replicas that look like the real thang. From sneakers to iPhones to whatever. They got it all. Everything is made in China after all so obviously they’re going to have a counterfeit industry to export products to poorer parts of the world.
I stopped calling it counterfeit and instead call it unauthorized. In one of my previous businesses I would buy raw goods from China that were the exact same as the American brand....like 100% the same. The only difference is that it was an unauthorized duplication of the raw good and so was an IP violation. I stopped after one of my shipments was intercepted by customs and my homie's shop got raided by the FBI. After that I felt like the juice wasn't worth the squeeze and started paying the markup in the USA. But China is basically at the point where it can make a Rolex, a Bentley, or anything and make it look 100% like an authorized release.
Last time my wife and I were in Thailand (2018) we went shopping at some little mall. Wife made friends with a shop worker (she smelled money..) and she told us when to come back for what my wife was looking for sometime in the P.M. because more items were going to be delivered sometime later, so we came back around 8pm but the shop was closed and many other shops were closed or looked ransacked.
A woman at the items booth beside her shop remembered us and called her for us and she came back. (We waited 15mins) While we were inside the locked shop and behind a certain that covered the whole front of the shop she told us why she closed early. The whole mini mall got raided early that afternoon and many shops got shut down with people arrested. Apparently some of the shop owners pay bribes to someone within the local Thai police that work with US/Euro agents. Right after the delivery the owner called and told her to hide all the designer bags in a hidden wall closet, lock up and leave 2 hours beforehand because agents were going to be inside the mall identifying & reporting on shops they see with knockoffs. We tipped her GOOD for coming back to make the sell.
A woman at the items booth beside her shop remembered us and called her for us and she came back. (We waited 15mins) While we were inside the locked shop and behind a certain that covered the whole front of the shop she told us why she closed early. The whole mini mall got raided early that afternoon and many shops got shut down with people arrested. Apparently some of the shop owners pay bribes to someone within the local Thai police that work with US/Euro agents. Right after the delivery the owner called and told her to hide all the designer bags in a hidden wall closet, lock up and leave 2 hours beforehand because agents were going to be inside the mall identifying & reporting on shops they see with knockoffs. We tipped her GOOD for coming back to make the sell.
l hear ya, in most cases we are paying for the brand name not the actual product. The products are made in the same factory but branded differently therefore pricing point differs when it reaches the market.
Zara makes Gucci like products but waaay cheaper. That said, there is also some real AAA replicas being manufactured not at the level of the original product and its super difficult to tell the difference.
China is winning regardless. They got errbody in a chokehold.
There was a test where the news took counterfeit Louis to the LV store and the LV store said it was authentic. This was about 10 years ago and that's when I knew "DA GAME DUN CHANGED!"