According to The Wall Street Journal, almost 90% of ALL counterfeit products come from Asia so today we are going to discuss 10 ways to avoid buying counterfeit merchandise online.  

As you probably already know, we absolutely despise the counterfeit industry (learn the 15 most counterfeited brands in the world).  We hate is so much that we previously wrote The 8 Reasons You Should NEVER Buy Fake Merchandise and  Signs it Might Be a Fake Product.  But today we are going to give you great information so you can avoid buying scam merchandise:

1. Only buy through REAL businesses. Here’s some easy way to tell if the business is “real”:

• A real business has an actual address.  A UPS store is not an "actual address".  A freight forwarder is not an actual address.  Many businesses do use a PO Box.  This is NOT a "red flag" however they should also have an actual location. 
• Real businesses are on file with the state they are located in and their paperwork can be looked up on the states .gov website.
• A real business has a website that is written in English with few, or no, grammatical errors. Of course it is absolutely possible to find a website in the USA that is owned by a family who came from a different country and English is not their first language. Of course there is nothing wrong with supporting this family. However, if the merchandise that is being sold is bulk, cheap Nike or super-discounted Michael Kors, this is a red flag when combined with the other factors listed.
• Real businesses should have years worth of reviews on Facebook and Google. It is NOT COMMON for a brand new business to be loaded up with super-deal big brands.
• Speaking of reviews, there’s a couple things to watch for when reading reviews. First, are the reviews from REAL people? You should be able to click on the reviewers profile and see other activity. Also, most business who have been around for years will have a couple bad reviews. A couple bad reviews does not mean the company is awful. Take your time and read the bad reviews. Did the company reply? Do the bad reviews mention counterfeits?  Learn the New 5-Star Review Scam.

2. Just because a business is inside the USA does not mean it's a "real business" or even an honest business. 

3. If you have never heard of the wholesale site, you can use a Domain Age Lookup to see how long the site has been up. Quick note: In our case, we changed our company name a year ago, so our new company name, BigBrandWholesale.com registers as being only 1 year old. However if you look up our prior company name you can see it has been registered for over 11 years:

My point is, if the company is registering as being new, ask if they recently had a name change, if they say Yes, look up the previous name.

4. As mentioned earlier, it is ok to support new businesses, but if it’s a new business that has no reviews, is selling Nike at insanely low prices and their website is filled with broken English, you can't locate an actual address and there's no Facebook / Google with reviews about the business; personally, I would advise against purchasing through it.

5. Avoid Craigslist or similar sites that allow sellers to be anonymous.  

6. Flea Markets usually offer rent-by-the-week spaces.  If you have a problem with your merchandise it is easy for the seller to vanish into thin air. Authentic merchandise is not usually a good seller at a Flea Market because the general flea market shopper is looking for garage sale type pricing, not $600 sunglasses or a $900 handbag. 

7. Buy from businesses that know exactly where the merchandise came from. For example, here at BigBrandWholesale.com we buy truckloads of extra stock directly from M*CYS, N*rdstr*m, SEARS, JC Penny, etc. We do not buy merchandise from eBay or China.

8. Buy from secure websites. Secure sites cost extra money, so most scammers have no desire to have a secure website. You can tell if any site is Secure by looking at the URL address area. If it says “https” the “S” means Secure. If the site says “http” it is not secure. Here’s a cool little fact you may not know, you can visit a secure site by visiting the http url, but when you get to the site it will automatically change to https. Wanna see? Give it a try: http://BigBrandWholesale.com

9. Test out customer service and see how long it takes to get a reply.  Is your reply written in decent English?  Does the reply match the question?  Did a real person type the reply or did they copy-and-paste a prewritten reply?  Did they actually answer the question or did they send you a link to their FAQS page?  A real business is going to answer your question(s) within a reasonable amount of time.  The reply should be written in English.  

10.  Street shops in downtown LA, Californias Garment District and in the Texas wholesale district you can always find counterfeit goods.  CA is a hotspot for fake Prada, Gucci, Versace and more.  Unfortunately these districts spread fake merchandise all across the USA.   This is why it is absolutely important to use the other 9 tips on this list to find a great wholesaler.  

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