Re:EBay Valet
by lifeformed on Friday June 20, 2014 @09:57AM
(#7920687)
Is there still a market for fake-but-good items? If you had a designer purse that was 99.99% indistinguishable from a real one, could you still sell it to people at a big discount, informing them that it's a fake? I wonder if there are people who would gladly knowingly buy a good-quality counterfeit one. You'd still get the social benefit of designer goods, since no one else will know.
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I'm sure there is a small market for this.
But, I think that most people do not want to buy a counterfeit on eBay. Ioffer provides much lower prices on fakes, oftentimes direct from China. For instance, on eBay, the average fake Chanel le boy still sells for over $1500, and a Celine mini luggage will sell for around $1400. There is no way that people are paying this kind of money knowingly for a counterfeit.
There are very few counterfeits that are 99.9% accurate. Most of the time I can spot a fake dress or bag on someone from <5 feet away. But, then again, I'm very familiar in this space.
Any proof to support the claim " I'm sure there is a small market for this."? I think there is a huge market for fake stuff in the US. Some people buy it intentionally, some dont. If you are paying $100 for an LV bag, its probably a fake or heavily used.
"Most of the time I can spot a fake dress or bag on someone from <5 feet away."
I'd be worried about survivorship bias. Perhaps you only "see" a sub-set of fakes (the un-convincing ones) and the good ones walk right on by. Isn't this problematic?