⚠️ Disclaimer: We do not promote or encourage people to buy counterfeit sneakers.
The counterfeits sneaker business is major, and it will always remain for as long as the sneaker market is still on the rise.
Several reasons influence the counterfeit market to exist, either its the supply-and-demand economics which in most cases results in consumers looking for a certain shoe and not being able to find it on the market because it released in limited quantities. Also, the ‘pricing’, I mean who doesn’t want to pay less?
The bottom line is for some people who just gotta have the latest pair, the best option is to end up buying fakes.
For an instance with the desired Converse x Virgil Abloh Chuck 70, a collaboration between Nike (the company which owns Converse), and Virgil Abloh which released few months ago in limited pairs and didn’t make it to any of the local retailers…but that doesn’t mean you won’t see it on the streets because the counterfeit pairs exist and goes for anything between R800 – R1200.
And these fakes have become so good that most knowledgeable people have a tough time being able to tell the difference between the real pair and the fake.
Times reporter Pierson says that as replicas get better, we’ll eventually be faced with an existential question about fakes: “If counterfeiters are using the same materials that official manufacturers use, and possess nearly the same level of craftsmanship, who’s to say what’s real and what’s fake?”
See below the below counterfeit pair that we have in hand:
In 2017 during a lecture at Columbia University, designer, DJ and stylist Virgil Abloh himself mentioned that he loves counterfeits. “If it’s working to the point where someone else can profit off that, that means is really working. You’re not taking anything away from me, you’re actually just advertising more.”
But that was a year ago…
The Air Jordan 1 Off-White Chicago, Nike Air Vapormax, adidas YEEZY 500, Balenciaga Triple S, amongst others adds to the list of some of the counterfeit sneakers that have filled the market.
For some folks this is a clear business opportunity because they are well-informed of the market, the trends, they know about the latest in-demand sneakers, and where to get them. Besides going downtown, a platform like Instagram is where such businesses extremely exist, and that is where you will discover a bunch of business pages selling these counterfeit sneakers at competitive prices.
To conclude this article:
Vice News recently went to Putian in China, noted as the “city of fakes,” to link up with a vendor who specializes in high-quality counterfeit sneakers and provides a guide through the black market for fake shoes.
In a 7 minute long clip, Dexter Thomas of Vice News chats with CHAN, a Replica Sneaker Seller, who got into the fake sneaker business while looking for a rare pair of sneakers then found fake pairs online.
“Unfortunately, it’s just the hard and fast rules of doing business. You meet difficult customers. You’ll meet cheaters, you meet scammers who will be out there to cheat you off a pair of shoes,” Chan said. “So, unfortunately, this kind of thing happens, especially when you’re on a public domain like the Internet.”
“I’ve spoken to some of our customers some of them are high school students some are college students university students. So yeah these are our main crowd generally,” Chan told VICE News Tonight. “It’s usually the kids themselves were very resourceful. They understand about replicas they understand that these are high-quality sneakers and they come finding you saying, hey I’d like to buy some high-quality replicas from you.”
Chan uses Reddit as a source to keep him updated with the latest sneakers that people are looking for.
Chan started his business back in 2016 (what he calls high-quality replicas) and was soon moving up to 120 pairs of shoes a day, which on average brought him $100,000 a month.
Asked why such business exist in Putian, “This is a very major district, it forms pretty much the backbone of the local city economy”.
In the video, Chan shows off the Replica pair of the Converse x Off white Chuck 70.
“If you want to truly make something that is very close to the original, you need a pair of the original shoes.”
“People manage to procure a sample of the original shoe before they’re even sold. These are commonly called Backdoors.”
“When you’re wearing a pair of shoes, no one in their right mind goes up close to your feet and says hey, that looks 0.5 inches off … I think it’s fake, a normal person doesn’t do that. All these things don’t actually matter in real life.”
Watch the full video below:
We would like to hear from you, do you think there’s any justification behind buying fakes? Jump onto our Instagram or Twitter and share your honest thoughts about this topic.
Always make sure the product you are buying is authentic and do look out for our upcoming article listing down the most trusted and legit sneakers resellers locally.
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