A pair of shoes was what SANJEEV DAS desired. Not just any shoes, mind you, but a pair of very rare Nike Air Jordans created in association with the artist Travis Scott. The issue? The sneakers, which went on sale earlier this month and sold out at Mach 10 speed, are now selling on the secondary market for several times their original $130 retail price. Mr. Das, a 26-year-old graphic designer from Frederick, Maryland, didn’t want to pay the outrageous price for the shoes, so he acquired “replicas” from a dubious website.
The word “duplicates” in the world of sneakers refers to the highest echelon of “fake” sneakers—exact replicas of the originals that can mislead all but the most discerning collectors. These aren’t the cheap knockoffs that are sold for $20 or $40 on street corners; these aren’t the half-hearted imitations that could be made of crackly vinyl rather than quality leather or that can have visible flaws like crooked Nike swooshes or sloppy stitching. Replicas are significantly more accurate copies that may cost $150 and above, making them about as pricey as many Fake Shoes Retailer.
They’ve shown to be alluring. Today, it might seem almost impossible to purchase some of the limited-edition shoes that Nike and Adidas release unless you have a spare 24 hours to camp outside a shop overnight or lightning-quick computer reflexes. Data scientist Jeff Hou, 26, from North Potomac, Maryland, described the retail shoe experience as “ridiculous.” After repeatedly failing to purchase his desired sneakers using Nike’s SNKRs purchasing app, he sought sanctuary in the realm of copies. Wow, this is ridiculous, I thought when I saw how fantastic the fakes were, remarked Mr. Hou. Though he still makes an effort to acquire Quality Fake Shoes, most of his most recent purchases have come from companies that make knockoffs.
It seems that a surprising proportion of consumers are willing to buy replicas. Reddit’s “Repsneakers” page has almost 176,000 users, indicating a lot of interest in the idea of getting around the legal market. Users evaluate many “batches” of replicas produced by various producers on such internet forums to find the most accurate duplicate. Would-be purchasers of imitation sneakers submit images of the Fake Shoes they’re thinking about buying on the Reddit page and request a crowdsourced quality check, or “QC,” from other users of the community. These images were given by the makers through WeChat, WhatsApp, or email.
The greatest knockoffs, according to Mr. Das, “would make you believe they were genuine if you weren’t in the community if you saw these Fake Shoes.” Additionally, he said that first batches, or those made available soon after a sneaker’s retail debut, are often inaccurate since producers did not have enough time to research the actual thing. He continued by saying that over time, these manufacturers may mimic an original shoe “very, really close.” A customer has the option to reject a pair of replicas before they are dispatched and request that the replica producer provide them with another pair from a later batch if, after worryingly examining the quality control, he determines that they are problematically out of sync with the original.
The majority of these vendors run rudimentary websites with images of shoes and contact information, including WhatsApp or WeChat numbers that clients may use to purchase reproductions. The majority of the phone numbers I looked up started with the China country code, 86. I contacted five producers through email and WhatsApp to learn more about their companies, but only one seller named “Will” responded, saying, “Sorry, we won’t speak about it.”
The lack of response is unsurprising given that producing counterfeit items is illegal in most nations, including the United States. Officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Los Angeles detained 14,806 pairs of imitation Nike Fake Shoes on October 9 in just one significant recent haul. The Herculean effort that customs officials confront in monitoring fake products was highlighted by Robert Copyak, the head of the CBP’s Intellectual Property Rights policy section. He stated that over 600,000,000 tiny items were transported by regular and express mail from 180 countries every year. Mr. Copyak claims that in addition to endangering the competitiveness of law-abiding businesses like Nike and Adidas, the CBP has discovered that proceeds from the sale of counterfeit products are used to finance criminal operations.