MY companion and I exchanged horrified glances recently as we walked into a popular Water Street store in Georgetown and discovered a sports sneaker we had purchased for Gy$12,000 (US$60) at a store on the West Side being sold for Gy$32,500 (US$162.50) at that store. It was identical in appearance, down to the somewhat roughly-glued soles.In a market that is flooded with knockoffs (both locally and internationally), how can consumers effectively protect themselves? Granted, there is no sure way; as Murphy, another good friend, says: “There are good fakes and there are bad fakes.”

With Online shopping growing in popularity among the young urban Guyanese, it’s easy to get cheated on Online sites. They have professional sounding names, and pictures that look like the real thing (those photos may even violate Copyright rules). And they price merchandise so it looks like they’re discounting the real thing, rather than overcharging for a counterfeit product.
And though you might want to believe that something fell off a truck, or went out the back door of the factory at night, those instances are rare. Don’t be fooled by the presence of a hang-tag, either; anyone who can counterfeit a handbag can fake that, too.
As with any Online vendor, you’ll want to consider how long they’ve been in business; how many previous customers there are; and you’d be suspicious if the seller has plenty of stock in an item that’s sold-out everywhere else.
If a fake is good, it can be hard for even the manufacturing company to distinguish it from the real thing, though there are covert and overt ways of doing that. For example, the number of stitches per inch in a seam may be a trade secret; and with items like Coach Bags that have serial numbers, they can easily tell if it’s for real.

What’s the consumer to do? Train your eye to spot a counterfeit by looking at the real thing in person at a reputable boutique or an authorized dealer.
How to spot a fake handbag

CHECK THE MATERIAL: Feel the quality of the leather. A designer bag will always be made of good quality leather. It will be fine, soft to the touch, and have a distinct smell. Over-processed leather is often shiny, hard and stiff.
CHECK THE WORKMANSHIP: The stitching should be perfectly even, with no loose threads or back-and-forth stitching at the end of a seam -– that’s a sign of sloppy construction. Check the seams for a match -– whether of the quilting on a Chanel bag, or the pattern on a Louis Vuitton.
Sloppy, slanted, and uneven stitching is a sign of an item having been poorly made, and therefore a fake bag. Designer bags will always have quality stitching, because it is part of the designer’s reputation to produce a quality item.

OBSERVE THE LOGO: The logo on the genuine item will never be printed unevenly, or cut off anywhere.
Logos are also placed in many areas on an authentic handbag. Look for them in and out of the purse, on the zipper pulley, even engraved into the metal pieces.
Brand names value their logo, and wouldn’t divide the letters in a seam. And where the pattern appears on either side of the seam, it should match precisely.

EXAMINE THE LINING: Examine the fabric liner. Not only will the fabric be good, but it will be very carefully placed, so that designs in the fabric will not overlap, or even be sewn into the seams. The liner fabric in designer bags always goes along with the overall design of the bag, and should be neat and aesthetically pleasing.
Counterfeiters sometimes work from photographs, which tend to distort colour. So if you have gone to a boutique and seen the colour of your desired item in person, you immediately have an advantage. The colour of the item being sold you should be precisely the same shade as the real thing you had observed; not a close approximation.
CHECK THE POCKETS: Here, too, it’s easy for counterfeiters, who are working off photographs rather than copying the real thing, to get it wrong. One journalist writing for Forbes.com has a fake Chanel tote on which copyists omitted the pocket on the back, and a Coach on which they included the back pocket, but added a zipper.
MISSPELLINGS: Counterfeiters at times make egregious errors, such as was made when Goyard counterfeiters spelt the company’s name, “Gooyar”, on both the printed canvas of the bag and its dust cover. That’s a dead giveaway.
EXAMINE THE HARDWARE: Look closely at the hardware of the handbag. It should be heavy, not hollow. If it’s supposed to be imprinted with the designer’s name, make sure that it is. The metal should be a good quality metal, and should somewhat match the colour of the purse. Look closely at the zipper. The zipper pull usually has the logo on it.
DEALER AND PRICING: If you must shop Online, don’t go to ANY site that isn’t the actual manufacturer’s site. Know what price to expect, and what price is too good to be true.

How to spot a fake shoe

Many of the same handbag rules apply to shoes. Examine the real version of the shoe on the official website, and compare it with the shoe in the store. Look carefully at every part of the shoe, including the sole, the colour mix, and the bottom.
Feel the sole of each shoe: It should feel like rubber. The soles of fake shoes feel more like plastic, or just slippery.
INSIST ON SEEING THE BOX: Reputable brands have distinctive boxes. Do not accept shoes in a plastic bag. Some fakes do appear in shoe boxes; nonetheless, those boxes are typically somewhat flimsy. But an original Nike shoe, for example, comes in a sturdy box that should not fall apart easily. Look for the SKU number on the box to see if it matches the inside label of each shoe.
TAKE ALONG A FRIEND: Most people have a friend who is knowledgeable in shopping in at least one area. There is ‘phone guy’, ‘weave girl’, ‘jewellery man’ and so on. So, if you have a friend who is into brand-name shoes, take him or her along.
EXAMINE COLOUR CONFIGURATIONS, also referred to as colourways: Websites such as Air-jordan.com give a thorough listing of every last Air Jordan ever released. It can be doable to glimpse up designs and colour combinations, together with other minute particulars of astounding Nike footwear, and examine the one you desire to buy with those particulars put up by the Nike Company.

OBSERVE THE STITCHING: Artificial boots (like the Nike Airmax we bought) can have sloppy stitching or glue work, and stitching that may well be uneven or just not straight. Genuine Nikes have stitching that is close to perfect, if not excellent.
SEARCH FOR BLEEDING OR FADED COLOURS: The boots we bought also had a slight dab of extra paint near the sole of one sneaker, like someone painting their nails and missing with the brush. Material hues to the shoe could also appear faded on fakes. A dependable shoe won’t have faded or bleeding hues.
WEARABILITY: If it starts to show undue stress after gentle wear, you know you bought a fake! You may not get a refund in Guyana, but you may hopefully report it, and make your voice heard. Do not spend your hard-earned money on fake products.
Happy shopping for the perfect shoes, sneakers and bags for the New Year!
Written By Michelle Gonsalves