How do you know if the Rab Jacket being sold on the internet is genuine? I was told that getting on for half of all TNF jackets sold on the internet are fakes.
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 do you mean ebay? if it's a cheap bargain then what would you think?
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I hadn't mention E-Bay or cheap. and what do you call cheap.
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| Edited: 18/02/10 08:46 |
what looks like a bargain must be cheap. either that or you are suggesting that yer average internet retailer is selling dodgy goods. have you told cotswolds et al yet?
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In other words you don't know the answer. With the view to e-bay are you saying that all items sold by individuals that can start at a £1 or £50 and can go up to £150 are cheap, and therefore fake.
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 I think what Parky is getting at is that as far as outdoors kit goes a reputable online retailer would not sell fake brands, their reputation would be wrecked if they did. However there is fake stuff out there, of course not everything on e-bay will be fake...but there will be duds there, personally I'll stick to retailers I know.
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Yes very well but if you don't use a retailer how do you know if it's a fake. as I was told that half of the TNF jackets sold are fake.
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 Hi Doug, If you do not purchase via an official retailer for these types of brands then there is a high risk the item you are buying will not be the genuine article. If it seems too good to be true............................
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 If you've any doubts at all don't buy it. A colleague once proudly showed me his TNF Ebay bargain which happened to be an obvious (to me) cheap fake of similar ones I had at the time and I was able to show him specific differences. I think a lot of people accept they're fakes and pay peanuts because they want the label rather than the performance. I was able to sell 3 used TNF jackets on Ebay for quite a bit more than the new fakes were going for, but that was probably because I have a reasonably big 100% rating for mostly selling used outdoor gear and seemed a genuine seller. There used to be sites showing photos of how to spot TNF fakes, so look around.
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 if you don't use a retailer how do you know if it's a fake It's a simple answer Doug: you don't. If there was a simple and reliable method to know then the bottom would fall out of the market for selling fakes. If half the TNF jackets sold are fakes that kinda suggests that hasn't happened... are you saying that all items sold by individuals that can start at a £1 or £50 and can go up to £150 are cheap, and therefore fake. I don't think he is, and I don't think it's the case. I've put quite abit on eBay over the years (mostly games) and if you put a popular thing with a good perceived value on it doesn't matter where you start the bidding, it will find its price (I've put on everything I've ever sold at a 99p start). Recently two Hilleberg Staikas went on, one at £1 and one at £280 and they both sold at about the same (~ £300), so start price doesn't tell you much. End price tells you about demand, and demand will be related to trust as well as popularity (Nallos cost less than Staikas at RRP, but they'll sell for more on eBay because there's more demand). People won't put big money on stuff where 50% of the goods are reutedly fake. If you want to be sure it's genuine buy from one of Rab's retailers. That's why they have a retail network of approved distributors. OTOH Rab stuff is more likley genuine than TNF because Rab are a much smaller "name", and people outside outdoor circles probably haven't heard of them. Counterfeiters concentrate on the most popular brands, and TNF is recognised in the high street. By "popular" I don't just mean raw sales, I mean recognisability and perceived desirability: a Casio watch will tell the time just as well as a Rolex, but I think you'll come across a lot more dodgy Rolexes than Casios... Pete.
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 Yes very well but if you don't use a retailer how do you know if it's a fake. as I was told that half of the TNF jackets sold are fake. How do you know what you was told wasn't fake?  In my view, if you are buying from a known online store, then its going to be genuine. If you are buying from ebay then yes, I have heard that a lot of the NF jackets are fake. But its not just NF, I would say that any jacket from Chinese seller is likley to be fake, I would also suggest that any seller selling several jackets all of the same make is likely to be bulk buying fakes, if the jackets are in garish or strange colour ways then again I would expect them to be fake. If I'm buying stuff from ebay then I check what else the seller is selling, and his previous feedback, I also check to see if he (or she) has clear photos of the jacket, not catalogue photos of the item, and if its a real photo whether that matches the details I know of that jacket. Over the last 10 years I have bought a lot from ebay, you can get some really good hardly used bargains, however, even though I've made as many checks as I can, I have ended up buying a fake now and then, however the savings made on the genuine items have far outweighed the cost of those fakes. Caveat emptor
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Thanks for the input people.
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 Not just TNF, but lots of ArcTeryx, Mammut and Haglofs too, especially when the seller is China/Hong Kong based. Some of the Haglofs stuff you see on ebay isn't even a copy of a particular item, just a generic jacket + fleece that they've stuck the H logo on! However, as an eBay 'veteran' I've never heard of any Rab fakes out there (perhaps the Rab name/logo just isn't trendy enough).
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 Yes very well but if you don't use a retailer how do you know if it's a fake. as I was told that half of the TNF jackets sold are fake. Have a word with God, he'll know. 
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 When I was in Nepal last November there were just a few bits of fake Rab kit in the shops there. The worst affected brand is definitely North Face, with Mountain Hardwear, ArcTeryx, Mammut, Haglofs, Marmot, and Patagonia following behind.
I find that the best way to spot a fake is by being familiar with the brands clothing range. If you know what the brand normally produces you'll notice little design features that run in the range year in year out. ie. You can possibly identify the brand of a jacket without seeing the labels! I used to work in outdoor retail so have a fair idea with some brands.
For example, I noticed that many soft shell jackets in Kathmandu were using the spotty/grippy external seam tape that is/was found on the MHW Syncro jacket. To me it seemed pretty obvious that an ArcTeryx shell wouldn't use such a design but the average punter might not see this.
I myself purchased loads of 'fake' kit in Kathmandu, including a North Fake down jacket. If you know what you're looking at you'll see that the jacket is made of a fabric that doesn't look like anything TNF use and the build quality isn't up to usual TNF standards however to the majority of the public it probably looks believable. It has logos in the right place (one on the front, one on the back, just like TNF do plus the 'summit series' symbol on the shoulder), it even has TNF zip pulls, but it's not real TNF.
If you're paying decent money for it but not from a reputable retailer, be careful.
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