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When people are willing to buy more for the name than for the workmanship.. That should tell you something.
Sadly, the same can be said about people themselves.
Selling like hot fakes amid city crackdown
By SUSANNAH CAHALAN and SUSAN EDELMAN
Last Updated: 4:33 AM, June 20, 2010
Knock it off!
Despite an ongoing city crackdown on Chinatown's bootleg sales of fake designer goods, peddlers still brazenly hawk illegally labeled "Coach" bags, "Gucci" sunglasses and "Rolex" watches.
"They sell these in stores for thousands of dollars. We sell them to you guys for much less," boasted a sidewalk seller with a suitcase full of fake Louis Vuitton purses.
"The businesses hate us, and the government doesn't get their taxes," he explained.
Two reporters posing as shoppers were bombarded with offers of luxury-brand fakes.
"Follow me," said a dark-haired man lurking on Cortlandt Alley off Canal Street.
In a back room off Cortlandt Alley, a merchant offers a knockoff Chanel bag for $60. The real version goes for $700.
His closet-sized storefront displayed lousy no-name stuff, but he opened an adjacent, graffiti-splattered door and led the shoppers into a dark, dank, debris-strewn basement.
At the back of the smelly cellar, he waved them into a brightly lit room filled with a cornucopia of counterfeits.
He showed off his wares, including a pink quilted "Chanel" shoulder bag (an authentic one costs $695), a red "Jimmy Choo" bag ($229) and a striped, multicolored "Dolce & Gabbana" bucket bag ($500). His most popular item is a silver and gold "Coach" purse ($798).
At $60 to $80 apiece, the knockoffs are as good as the real thing, he insisted.
"The other bags are made in Italy. These are made in Korea," he said. "That is the only difference -- everything else is the same."
He took $120 for two purses and two "Gucci" sunglasses that go for $250 to $295 online. One pair broke the next day.
Before exiting, he blocked the shoppers to call his partner on a cellphone, checking in Spanish if the coast was clear.
"Policia," he said. "That's a problem -- not for you, for me."
Across the street, a man with gold front teeth whispered, "Watches. Rolex. Man or woman? Silver or gold?"
He noted his best-selling "Rolex Submariner" was worn by James Bond. He asked $80 for a style that sells for $5,510.
"It's kinetic. Not that Chinese battery bull----," he said.
He eyed a passing NYPD van and smiled at the driver who grinned and pointed at him.
"I know those guys," he said but quickly alerted a fellow dealer: "This place is hot."
He agreed to take $50 for a watch and walked away with $60 -- not giving change.
The NYPD has made 682 busts for counterfeit sales on Canal Street this year, seizing 16,000 handbags, 2,700 wallets, 2,600 sunglasses, nearly 5,000 watches, $35,000 in cash, 16 vans and a car, said Inspector Edward Mullen, a department spokesman.
Cops know some sellers by sight and arrest "if they observe a violation," he said.
susan.edelman@nypost.com
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/m...#ixzz0rRrx6Exg
When people are willing to buy more for the name than for the workmanship.. That should tell you something.
Sadly, the same can be said about people themselves.
^ This is not true.Originally Posted by Sherpa
Italian leather = Korean pleather.
What was that again?:
http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=vintage+louis+vuitton
http://www.nvo.com/louisvuitton/inventory/
Ninj: better to buy throw away junk or stuff you'll keep forever and that holds (or increases) it's value over time?
Because you don't have an eye workmanship does not mean it's not there.
Please show me a generic brand bag that increases it's value... and does not wind up eventually just being thrown way.
--
Fab, please brush up on your english.
You tend to insult a lot when you misunderstand what people are saying and that does not lead to civil discourse.
Please tell me where I said cheap quality was better?
Actually I asked a question. But OK... fair enough... let me rephase it:
What's wrong with buying stuff you'll keep forever and that holds (or increases) it's value over time?
Please show me a generic brand bag that increases it's value... and does not wind up eventually just being thrown way.
Please tell me why you are asking me.
Again, people are more willing to buy something based on the name brand than of the actual quality of the item.
If they were more concerned about the quality, there would be less of a market for the look-alikes.
The price of many of these items is also, arguably, not for their quality in the first place, but for their name as well. So the very thing that makes a $200 bag sell for $700 will make a cheap $20 knockoff sell for $70.
The analogy is to people in regards to how people act around celebrities. They are much more willing to attach unmerited accolades on someone who is famous than one who does much more but is not known. More people want the razor Tiger Woods shaves with even though Tiger would not know any better than the next man. But his NAME is enough to make guys buy them.
So you can take your point of contention and go somewhere else with it. I was never saying that people do NOT value quality.
/me puts away Sledgehammer of the Obvious
Still, buying and selling illegal knock-off handbags is against the law.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001...76707#28576707
http://www.iacc.org/
http://www.fakesareneverinfashion.com/
Last edited by Sherpa; June 21st, 2010 at 08:11 PM.
Ninj: you are right... looking over the thread, I guess I did/do not understand your posts. Sorry.
That goes w/o saying.
In many places certain "marital relations" are against the law. Does that make the law "right"?
The purpose of the law is to protect, the problem is, sometimes protection affords immunity from accountability.
I am not trying to argue against it, but rather comment on the irony that a NAME is worth so much money. That the quality of construction may have once established one product over another, but that now, absolutely ugly "look at me" bags with the "designers" name all over it that afford very little functionality or quality over a generic of similar construction are being sold for so much more.
As many arguments can be made as to "artistic" and other qualities, but the bottom line is simple. Many things in this world no longer rely on their own merit, but in the perception of the owner in the eyes of the people around them.
Those are DAAAMN fine clothes Your Highness!
Perfume that contains urine... just think about that for a minute..
Now the question comes, would that be in the fake or the original?
Yes me too. Supply and demand. We drive the market as consumers.
just the same with Crack, LSD, Ecstasy, Coke and Meth.
oh there's a small issue with the law there too :-)
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