Le Prix: Shop & Chat with Real Authentication

 

This article is ridiculously timely as just the other day I was accused of carrying a fake Chanel bag. For real…a designer resale expert and fashion writer for LePrix who owns a fake? Bissh, please.

The facts: The bag is authentic—I purchased it at Saks Fifth Avenue. I just had it professionally cleaned so I can resell it. I was at the Maryland State Fair watching the horse races, not exactly a place I’d bring my fanciest bag to hang with the farm animals and farmers. So, I guess I need to get it authenticated before I sell it.
Of all the people who would be caught carrying a FAKE, it wouldn’t be me! Well, this morning I learned about Real Authentication and I immediately signed up because it’s obvious to me this bag—and maybe a few others—will need an extra level of protection and authentication before I’m accused of selling a fake.
What’s Real Authentication? It’s a designer authentication company that lets you authenticate and verify your item from anywhere, anytime…which means there’s an app! And since LePrix is one of the world’s top designer resale companies, it just makes sense for us to feature them in this month’s Shop & Chat.

Tell me about the founding of Real Authentication.
Real Authentication was founded by Anastacia Bouzeneris and Jenna Padilla. We met while working together as authenticators at another designer resale company and both realized there was a need in the industry for a quick, easy and reliable way to authenticate luxury goods, so we took a leap and launched Real Authentication!


How and why did you launch Real Authentication?
We’ve been authenticating in the secondary market for nearly a decade and we’ve held positions as Senior Authenticators for one of the industry’s top resellers. Because we’ve been in the industry for a long time, we’ve noticed the speed at which the designer resale industry has grown and become one of the primary ways of buying luxury goods. While we were working for various resellers in the industry, we’d witness clients struggle with reasons why their item was either deemed authentic or counterfeit. The clients were unable to find a quick, reliable and easy way to authenticate goods and find credible information surrounding authenticity in general. Even internally at our company, it was difficult to find a reliable source for authentication.
Real Authentication was born due to witnessing large companies and individual shoppers alike struggle through the same pain points of verifying authenticity.
Why are you so passionate about fighting counterfeits? 
Not only have we seen our clients get taken advantage of by scammers, but we’ve been burned too! There are few things more disturbing than being scammed and having zero recourse. We absolutely love and appreciate the craftsmanship and heritage behind the brands we service, but we are primarily motivated by finding justice for our clients and offering a reliable, non-biased source of regulation to the secondary market as a whole.
How do you authenticate?
We analyze everything—from the client information all the way down to the denier of a stitch. Not only do we have two highly-trained authentication experts who review every single order, but we also use technology that we created—Smart Database Scan—to crosscheck data within our system and identify any red flags. With the higher quality of the fakes today, you can never be too careful! We always recommend getting multiple opinions to verify authenticity though.
What are the most popular authentication requests that come your way? 
Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton will always be our most authenticated brands as they tend to be the most popular and in turn the most counterfeited. We see so much variety overall though, it is always exciting sifting through our admin panel.

What was your first luxury vintage purchase?  
Jenna: I’ll always remember what first spiked my interest in the secondary market…I came across a vintage Chanel Crystal Sautoir necklace for $100 and could tell immediately it was authentic and incredibly underpriced! I wore it for months and then tossed it on eBay to make a quick and massive profit. I was sold!
Anastacia: My journey into the secondhand market started in 1999 when I opened my eBay account. One of my first purchases was a vintage Louis Vuitton bag. It was well used, but new to me! To this day, I still have the bag as it’s a reminder of my journey right from the start.
To find out more about Real Authentication, click here.

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ThredUp Unveils New Platform And $175 Million In Funding As Resale Trend Accelerates

ThredUp announced today a new platform called Resale-As-A-Service that will allow retailers to partner with the company. Gani Pinero Photography

Even as the retail industry has slumped, dragged down by disappointing earnings and an unending trade war, resale is exploding. With the $24 billion secondhand market looking more and more enticing to hard-up traditional retailers, no small number of them began to court the fashion resale marketplace ThredUp over the last year, CEO and cofounder James Reinhart says.
“I think all of them acknowledged that resale was a trend that was accelerating,” he adds. “But they weren’t exactly sure how to participate in it.”
The result of those conversations, ThredUp announced today, is a new platform called Resale-As-A-Service that will allow retailers to partner with the company, offering three options: an in-store pop-up, online collaboration or a loyalty program. To power the initiative, ThredUp has raised $100 million in a new funding round, to go with a previously undisclosed $75 million from last year. That brings ThredUp’s total funding to more than $300 million and values the company at $670 million, according to Pitchbook. (ThredUp wouldn’t comment on its valuation.)
In pilots of Resale-As-A-Service, Reinhart says, the loyalty program has proved the most popular of the three options. In that model, when shoppers purchase an item from a ThredUp partner, they are sent a co-branded “clean out kit”—the bag that ThredUp sellers use to send items to be resold. But instead of receiving cash, as they would in a direct transaction with ThredUp, sellers in the loyalty program get credit to the partner retailer. ThredUp keeps the markup on the resold item, and the partner retailer improves its customer retention; the individual seller, meanwhile, may get a bonus for using the loyalty program instead of going straight to ThredUp. For example, Reformation, an eco-conscious contemporary label, adds 15% to what ThredUp offers a seller as an incentive.
The pop-ups are also gaining traction, with Macy’s and JCPenney announcing last week that they are partnering with ThredUp. The in-store spaces, which will be about 500 to 1,000 square feet, will feature new items on a weekly basis, offering brands that aren’t already in a typical Macy’s or JCPenney. There will be 100 pop-ups by Labor Day, Reinhart says, including the company’s partnership with Stage Stores, a department store chain.

“In just these 10 years, we’ve had a radical shift in how people shop and buy apparel. And I think that shift is going to continue,” says James Reinhart, CEO and cofounder of ThredUp. Courtesy of ThredUp

Retailers across the board are demonstrating a “new appreciation for where the young shopper is shopping,” says Reinhart, 40. But it’s not as if Macy’s and JCPenney had much of a choice.
Both have been struggling of late. Macy’s shares fell 13% after it announced its second-quarter earnings (and its ThredUp partnership) on August 14; shares are down another 9% since. JCPenney’s results were grim, too, and it’s at risk of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange with shares hovering around $0.60.
The two companies have long been trying to differentiate their drab department stores any way they can to draw people in. JCPenney offers Sephora store-in-stores while Macy’s last year acquired Story, a concept shop.
With their latest attempt at a tie-up, there’s no doubt they have landed on a popular trend. According to a ThredUp report, resale is growing 21 times as fast as the broader retail market and itself will become a $51 billion market by 2023.
But what’s to say those treasure-hunting shoppers will choose a Macy’s with a ThredUp pop-up over an off-price retailer like TJ Maxx? Reinhart himself notes that’s where 70% of ThredUp shoppers say they would go if the reseller weren’t an option.
Still, Reinhart is confident that ThredUp’s broad appeal—it carries more than 30,000 brands—and its ability to scale will bring more retailers on board. He hints that other partners are already in the pipeline. Plus, the resale industry is only going to keep growing. Investors already poured $300 million into The RealReal, an online consignment shop that focuses on luxury, when it went public in June. And Poshmark, another resale startup, is considering an IPO this fall, the Wall Street Journal reported in April. (ThredUp says it has no plans to go public.)
“The opportunity has gotten bigger and bigger every year,” Reinhart says. “The closet of the future…is going to look very different than the closet of today. If you think back 10 years ago when we started, you had none of these direct-to-consumer brands. There was no such thing as rental. There were no subscription companies.
In just these 10 years, we’ve had a radical shift in how people shop and buy apparel. And I think that shift is going to continue.”

Amazon Admits to Having a Counterfeiting Problem

image: Amazon

Amazon admits that it might have a problem with counterfeits. For the first time ever, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant made mention in its annual 10-K filing of the elephant on its platform: fakes. In a single line in the “risk factors” section of the yearly report it files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Jeff Bezos-owned company stated, “We may be unable to prevent sellers in our stores or through other stores from selling unlawful, counterfeit, pirated, or stolen goods, selling goods in an unlawful or unethical manner, violating the proprietary rights of others, or otherwise violating our policies.” 

The arguably long-overdue admission comes amidst mounting criticism of and a growing number of lawsuits filed against the world’s largest e-commerce platform, most of which have accused Amazon of being “complicit” in the widespread sale of counterfeit goods on its site. These qualms have largely followed from Amazon’s 2014 move to enable China-based entities to sell directly to Amazon shoppers in the West, and in the process, growing its sales by a whopping 20 percent in a single year and enabling its total revenues to blaze past the $100 billion mark for the first time.

To date, Amazon-specific criticism has come from a multitude of sources, including this website, which questioned the merit of its “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to fakes in light of the fact that searches for things, such as “Fake Gucci” bags and “replica Birkin” bags, readily return results for counterfeit goods.

Independent sellers — forced to directly compete on Amazon’s marketplace with scammers who blatantly steal their intellectual property — have spoken out. Casey Hopkins, the founder of industrial design firm Elevation Lab, penned a highly-cited post on his website last year, calling out Amazon for directly profiting from the sale of fakes.

Brands also have not been shy about taking the $1 billion giant to task. Birkenstock, for instance, publicly cut off Amazon, not once, but twice, “terminating  [its] business relations with Amazon” in the U.S. and the European Union, due to Amazon’s alleged failure to commit to “proactively policing its site for counterfeits.”

Still yet, at least one trade group, the American Apparel & Footwear Association, has urged the U.S. Trade Representative to include Amazon’s international arms to its annual blacklist of “Notorious Markets,” asserting that its “members are growing increasingly frustrated with how [Amazon] protects their intellectual property.”

These complaints, among others, have coincided with legal action. Mercedes Benz’s parent company, Daimler AG, filed suit against Amazon in November 2017 on trademark infringement grounds, claiming that in additional to its problematic marketplace, Amazon’s model for labeling products as “Shipped from and sold by Amazon.com” amounts to a “fraudulent business act.” In particular, Daimler asserted that by using the “Shipped from and sold by Amazon.com” model,  “Amazon itself sells infringing items” and “capitalizes upon and profits from Daimler [and other brands’] reputation and goodwill.”

Less than a year after that legal battle was initiated, fashion brand Ella Moss filed a trademark infringement suit against Amazon, alleging that the giant launched a similarly-named private label, Ella Moon, with a similar aesthetic and lookalike designs  in an effort to confuse consumers and steal sales from Ella Moss.

All the while, Amazon’s PR team has been adamant that it “strictly prohibits the sale of counterfeit products and invest heavily – both funds and company energy – to ensure our policy against the sale of such products is followed.”  

According to CNBC, the newly-added acknowledgement of counterfeit goods in its 10-K filing “reflects Amazon’s increased concern over the counterfeit problem on its marketplace, as the words ‘counterfeit’ and ‘pirated’ were never mentioned in its annual filing before.”

ORG HERE

REAL AUTHENTICATION: HOW WE AUTHENTICATE DESIGNER HANDBAGS

REAL AUTHENTICATION : HOW TO AUTHENTICATE DESIGNER HANDBAGS 

Real Authentication offers top-tier online handbag authentication services to both individuals and resellers alike... but HOW? There are very specific sets of handbag authentication checkpoints we use to verify the authenticity of each designer brand we service. We have outlined a few of the handbag authentication checkpoints here for the Authentic Christian Dior Wallet With Chain below:

Replica Resale - Fake Louis Vuitton Is More Expensive Than The Authentic Bag!

Replica Resale - Fake Louis Vuitton Is More Expensive Than The Authentic Bag!

Needless to say, digging around the internet late at night will always lead to shocking (and likely disturbing) discoveries, but this one may take the cake. We are more than familiar with the rampant expansion of websites selling only counterfeit designer handbags, however this particular website is offering a counterfeit Louis Vuitton paper shopping bag for $19! 

It is beyond me why someone would pay for a Louis Vuitton paper shopping bag to begin with, but entertaining the idea of paying for freebies - you may purchase the same, AUTHENTIC Louis Vuitton shopping bag on eBay for under $9. This is one instance where the REAL thing is actually cheaper than the knockoff! Go figure.

HOW WE AUTHENTICATE DESIGNER HANDBAGS - REAL AUTHENTICATION

Fashion Designer Creates DELECTABLE & Realistic Handbags

The 26-year-old designer,  Rommy Kuperus, makes incredible purses, necklaces, and bowties that look uncannily like real food.  Rommy has made bags that look like waffles, tortilla chips, and a plate of a hamburger and fries, too.

Each shoulder bag and clutch she sells is made-to-order by hand and expertly executed, justifying the €99 ($107) to €250 ($270) price tags.

Constructed out of lightweight foam, they feature hidden zippers that open up to a hollow center that can fit a phone, keys, money, and make-up.

Kuperus has made bags that look like a giant tortilla chip, steaks (both grilled and raw, still in the grocery store packaging), several types of pizza, a fried egg, an English breakfast, sandwiches, pancakes, sushi, and burgers.

@REALAUTHENTICATION - REAL OR FAKE FEBRUARY

The Real Authentication Instagram followers have spoken - Handbag Authentication quizzes are a definite favorite! Real Authentication has decided to dedicate the entire month of February to Authentication quizzes.

Can you identify which images are REAL or FAKE? Want to submit an item to be featured on one of the daily Real Authentication Instagram quizzes? Use #realorfakefeb to submit your image for review and be sure to follow @realauthentication to be sure you see each and every quiz. Comment REAL or FAKE on each image and let us know why you believe the item to be authentic or counterfeit. 

Say whaaaaat - eBay Authentication Program

 

EBAY AUTHENTICATE PROGRAM

The eBay marketplace today (Thursday, January 12, 2017) announced the launch of a new in-platform designer authentication program called eBay Authenticate. Buyers will be able to list their items and also opt to have them authenticated by a trusted authenticator within the eBay platform. The sellers will then be required to submit the item to be authenticated prior to collecting funds for their listed item. The buyer does still maintain the right to pay for the item without an official authentication, however this new service is projected to have reasonable price points and therefore become a "no-brainer" for customers to opt for a proper authentication prior to purchasing.

Many online re-sellers like TheRealReal and selling platforms like Tradesy, Poshmark, and Amazon sell pre-owned handbags, shoes, jewelry and other accessories. They all allow consumers to buy high-end brands at a discount.. but generally at their own risk. This system has worked wonders for expanding the pre-owned designer resale market, however without proper regulation counterfeit goods have become rampant.

 

 Most resellers do authenticate the goods as part of their internal process to keep from selling fake handbags, shoes and accessories. Because the items are verified, consumers feel they can trust what they’re buying is truly authentic. This is a system of checks and balances the larger reseal platforms have not migrated towards - until now.

“We know that many shoppers may be hesitant to purchase high-end products online,” admits Laura Chambers, Vice President of eBay Consumer Selling, in the company announcement. “This service is designed to help quell some of those concerns – and in turn – enhance the opportunity for our sellers to get top dollar for their items,” she says.

As an online authentication company ourselves, we have always warned our clients to buy with caution and always authenticate before, or at the very least - after, purchasing any designer goods pre-owned. We love the precaution eBay is adopting with the eBay Authenticate Program, however if you do need an authentication today, please submit photos of your item HERE and we will get back to you within the same day of submitting! 

You can also follow us on INSTAGRAM for daily tips on authentication!

eBay is currently constructing its new authenticate program, so fees for the service remain unknown. However, eBay is likely to charge difference prices for the service, depending on the item’s brand, size and origins. The program will be made available to all sellers in every category around the globe later this year, although eBay has yet to reveal an exact launch date. The company is currently running a pilot program of the service and will share further information later in the year.

China, and other countries in South-East Asia, remain the largest sources of counterfeit goods, with clothing, footwear and accessories being listed among the most copied goods. However online e-commerce platforms have been working hard to ensure their efforts against counterfeit goods do not go unseen. Earlier this month Alibaba filed a lawsuits against two vendors who were allegedly selling counterfeit goods, the first legal action of its kind to occur in China, a few weeks after US regulators accused the company of not doing enough against counterfeiters.