In today’s generation, way too many things cost too much money. There’s not a reason in this world why I should have to go out and spend 25% of someone’s rent on a trendy item that’ll probably die down within the next week.
Designer, trendy stuff is overpriced just for the label, hence why I love the idea of other popular fast shopping brands creating duplicates or “dupes” of the original product.
Dupes are more likely to sell at more reasonable and affordable prices. For years, people always used the concept of dupes as a way fast and easy way to make a quick buck. As of recently, many influencers on TikTok are showing off these product dupes on their pages they got from ‘TikTok Shop’ in order to not only promote the product but grow their platforms as well.
“Dupes are generally not illegal, whereas a counterfeit or fake is an item that’s deliberately attempting to pass itself off as the real thing. And counterfeits are illegal,” New York Times journalist Elizabeth Paton said in an article about the booming dupes market.
Me personally, I don’t buy designer stuff because of the idea of spending ridiculous prices on something I could get anywhere else on the internet makes me sick.
So I could absolutely get a dupe of the product if I like the design of it.
Take the website Shein for example; Literally all you have to do search up “Skims dress dupe” and boom! Over thousands of results will show up with the dupe of a trendy product for about half the price of the original. Same thing with the shopping app Temu.
Of course, I can see how people could be against the whole idea of dupes with the ‘quality over quantity’ argument, or some might even say going out of your way to buy a dupe is just another way of supporting plagiarism.
These two theories could easily be debunked. I feel as long as it’s not a counterfeit, I totally support them. If someone wouldn’t want to buy the original expensive version, no one’s losing money by them buying a cheaper version. People only would buy the expensive version wouldn’t buy the cheaper version because they’re looking for that status symbol and only care about that cool logo they’re getting. Sometimes dupes are made better than the original product, with much better quality.
To sum things up, it’s all fair game at the end of the day; If you make things too expensive for the majority of people just because of a logo, people are going to find loopholes just to save a quick buck. It’s common sense.
It’s super trendy right now to have a dupe that can fool keen eyes. I can’t even bother paying what I’d pay in a Spotify subscription each month on an accessory I’ll most likely wear once; By all means, if you have the money, then sure, go for it!
