The only reliable way to know you’re getting a genuine designer label purse:
Perform the “smell test” before you buy a designer label online.
What’s the “smell test”?
- Go into an actual store where you are sure you are getting the “real deal” on genuine designer merchandise. Like a Coach store at your local mall. Do NOT go into an outlet mall or any other location where clearance, wholesale, or rock-bottom deals are being sold. You aren’t going there to buy your purse – You’re going there to TEST the merchandise.
- Look for the purse that is the exact same model you are planning on buying – or if they don’t have it, one that is close in structure and style.
- Now, let your fingers and senses guide you when examining the purse. Do your fingers glide across the leather or metal hardware smoothly? Does it feel heavy in your hands? Do you get a genuine sense of how much labor and attention to fine, minute details while this item was being made?
- Examine the stitches and the seams. Can you see broken threads poking up through the holes? Can you see seams that might appear too weak to be stretched? Do you see exposed raw fabric edges anywhere? Does the leather appear real? And can you smell the leather at all?
- Now for the price: What is the average price of the label and item you are examining? If the item is too low for the range your product is supposed to be priced at, then it is probably not the “real deal”. Louis Vuitton bags are in the thousands. Coach bags are in the hundreds. Usually, only authorized dealers are allowed to sell genuine designer labels. That’s why it’s important you go to a store where you can feel absolute certainty about handling genuine designer labels. This is important. An unauthorized retailer usually doesn’t want you to know this. So you’re going to get every line in the book about why THEY happen to have Louis Vuitton’s, Gucci’s or Prada’s.
No one can resist buying something genuine when it “fell off a truck”, so to speak. After all, when you’re in the face of a truly genuine item and you’re confronted with a “genuine” designer label bag for only a fraction of the real cost, then you are put into your weakest emotional state. You become a motivated buyer – confronted by a very motivated seller.
What to do, What to do….Oh, heaven on earth, what will you do??!
The very last thing you should do is take leave of your senses.
I say, resist the urge.
Only buy when you KNOW for sure that you are getting genuine Prada, Coach or Louis Vuitton. Do your homework. Find out what the genuine article costs and whether or not a certain store is in fact a genuine retailer of that brand or label.
I remember back in the old days, with regard to designer hair products. I could only buy the real item through my hair dresser. Yet, I could find reduced priced versions of them in every grocery store or pharmacy. In fact, that’s all you ever found there. Look-alikes. And everyone always insisted they had the genuine product. Yet, when I brought it home, it was awful on my hair.
Do the same when you are seeking to buy genuine label items. If the manufacturer says you can’t buy their product from anyone else except genuine authorized dealers. Then you can rest assured that your search is over and that you are only guaranteed a fake when you buy any other way.
So true!