Before we begin, give your QC skills a test!
It wasn’t easy, was it? In the public mind, fakes will always be defined by the endlessly creative Canal Street frankenbag creations that wouldn’t past muster with most people including your uncle who doesn’t give two shits about fashion and has been proudly donning the same pair of Dockers since 1992. A lot has changed. High-end reps are quickly closing the gap on their authentic counterparts in both appearance and quality. The outrageous, often unjustifiable annual price increases spearheaded by major brands like LV and Chanel are driving consumers towards other alternatives and diminishing the stigma of purchasing counterfeit designer goods in the process.
What is QC?
Whatever it is you’re looking for, we can all but guarantee that the options available to you are plentiful. It’s both a blessing and a curse. How are you supposed to know what to choose? Quality check/control, or QCing will answer that question. Arguably the most important step in the ordering process and a worthwhile skill to develop if this isn’t going to be a one-and-done purchase for you. QCing really isn’t as complicated as it seems. Even though there are multiple factors to consider and many details to be aware of, anyone can do it and it’s fun. It might even become your favorite part of rep-buying. Remember Highlights Hidden Pictures? It’s like that except far more rewarding.
The Basics
It’s imperative for all buyers to do their research and do it well. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. We should start with the number one QC faux pas so we can purge it from the onset: having unreasonable expectations.
There are limits to reps. 1:1 is a fallacy that causes buyers to have unrealistic hopes resulting in a great deal of consternation when they’re inevitably dashed. Anyone chasing perfection will be sorely disappointed. We must accept that there will be some deviation even in the highest quality, most well-reviewed rep. Let’s not get carried away here. We can’t hold reps to a higher standard than we would the genuine article that costs thousands of dollars more.
Secondly, do not QC with confirmation bias. What we mean by this is that buyers have a tendency to designate one auth specimen as their incontestable QC standard, then use it to reject everything that isn’t identical to it. If only it could be so simple. You should not attempt to validate your disappointment by seeking out auth examples that look different from your pre-shipment pictures (PSP) while purposely overlooking everything else that shows the variation in question is well within the range of accuracy, thus acceptability. You are doing yourself a disservice with this approach. It’s not only wrong, it will it make you terrible at QCing in the long run and it will cause you to discard fantastic reps for no good reason. Sellers will rightfully deem you impossible to please and refuse to work with you. You’ll wind up feeling like you wasted a lot of time, and worse, money. We want to help you avoid that. This is supposed to be fun.
To do this right, you have to consider various references and compare against multiple pictures of the same bag, wallet, shoe, piece of jewelry, what have you from The Purse Forum (TPF), Instagram, Pinterest, blogs, and resale sites. Avoid the brands’ websites as some of them photograph samples for their stock images and certain design elements can and do change during the final production run.
QCing requires conviction in your own judgment. You may not feel all too confident about it now, but give yourself some credit. You know what you like and you know what you want. That’s already half the battle, and the best part is you have a good support system in RL. There’s no shortage of knowledgeable, helpful members here who will gladly give you their advice and teach you a thing or two. However, no one is the sole authority on rep accuracy. That includes our best reviewers, us mods, and the individuals who wrote the guides in this very wiki. We’re all looking for and prioritizing different things. There is a lot of ingrained bias when it comes to QCing because so much of it is nothing more than someone’s personal opinion. The best rep, best seller, and best factory is entirely subjective.
Ultimately, it is your money†, so your decision is what matters most. Learn to trust your instincts and you will come to find that no one can QC your rep better than you can.
†No amount of money buys rep perfection because it doesn’t exist.
The Method
- What’s most important to you: price, quality, or accuracy?
- Thoroughly study and become familiar with the details of what you are looking to buy. Remember to use several auth references. Buyer photos on TPF and IG are infinitely more useful than professionally lit, airbrushed stock images. You’ll get better at this part of the process the more you do it. If you think this much work is unnecessary and you have no interest in being so fastidious, that’s fine too. It’s up to you how in-depth you want to get.
- Don’t allow others to dictate what your standards should be. You’re allowed to have your own preferences even when it runs counter to popular consensus. That said, be self-aware enough to realize when you’re taking it too far.
- A forcibly delivered assertion is not necessarily expertise. Just because someone sounds like they know what they’re talking about, doesn’t mean they actually do. It does not make them right nor you wrong.
- Be mindful of who you listen to and take everything with a healthy dose of skepticism. You never know who has ulterior motives. Not every seller is willing to provide honest feedback on their suppliers. They’re focused on making the sale. The rep world, as with all illegal enterprises, is sketchy.
Auth vs. Factory Photos vs. PSP
PSP should always be compared to factory stock photos not to the authentic. Comparing the rep to the auth should be done prior to ordering. If that doesn’t make any sense and goes against what you’ve been led to believe, allow us to explain. Choosing an accurate rep is a time-consuming, multi-step process. There are so many factories in China producing products at various quality and price levels. The abundance of choice is what’s understandably overwhelming and confusing to most buyers. Every factory provides stock pictures that sellers use to show customers what they have to offer. When researching a rep, use those images to QC. Don’t just limit yourself to one factory either. Seek out other options from your seller or multiple sellers by searching WeChat Moments and browsing Yupoo/Szwego albums. Afterwards, compare all the images you’ve collected to the auth and to each other. Soon enough, you’ll be able to whittle it down to the one.
Once you’ve made your decision, pay, and receive PSP, that’s when you should be comparing the pictures to the stock images only. At this stage, your primary concern is quality not accuracy. Evaluating accuracy was the purpose of the preliminary QC and you’ve already completed that step. Now, if the product differs substantially from the factory photos, you can request your seller to exchange it for you although you should not assume that the factory will allow this. If it is not a noticeable difference – and be honest about what’s actually noticeable to the average person – then that’s what you’re stuck with even if you’re convinced that one flaw makes the whole thing an #instantcallout or a “dead giveaway.” We despise both those terms, and no, it probably isn’t as bad as you think it is. There’s no need to get upset. This is the way the rep game works and if you want to continue playing, then you’ll have to learn to accept the L graciously. You’re not always going to get exactly what you want, but you’ll get pretty damn close and for 10% of the authentic price. Some compromises are worth it.
The Accuracy Scale
We’ve firmly established that product details will differ between seasons, collections, and even bag-to-bag. We cannot emphasize enough how flawed the auth we’re comparing our reps to are. TPF is filled with sad tales of misalignment, discoloration, peeling edges, broken chain straps, tarnished hardware, and crooked logos. It’s become such a pervasive problem that the brands have trained their own sales staff to explain away defects by pushing the “everything’s handmade” excuse. For the amount of profit they generate on the sale of luxury accessories, they could stand to come up with a better one considering most things are made by hand including your iPhone, your underwear, and even your reps. They will never admit it, but the output of LVMH and their ilk isn’t what it used to be now that shareholder returns supersede standards.
Don’t be shocked when you come across the real deal in a department store and your rep feels equally nice if not better, or if an item has a feature inconsistent with what’s been accepted as QC criterion on RL especially for classic styles that have been around for decades such as the Chanel Classic Flap or LV Neverfull. Steadfast rules don’t mean a whole lot when the auth varies as much as they do. As you QC your rep, never forget that the notion of accuracy exists on a sliding scale not an exact target. That’s a positive thing. It means there’s more than one right answer. It means your rep is likely to be “passable” than not. It means QCing isn’t that difficult after all.
