Focus: From Lululemon to Birkenstock, duplicate styles lure holiday shoppers
20/11/2023 11:00
By Katherine Masters
NEW YORK, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Lauren Maginness is a fan
of Lululemon LULU.O . But the 31-year-old product marketer in
New York City is increasingly supplementing her activewear with
less-pricey brand duplicates she picks up through e-commerce
site Amazon.com AMZN.O .
One of her favorites: CRZ Yoga's $32 high-waisted yoga
pants, resembling Lululemon’s popular $98 Align leggings.
Maginness learned about CRZ from an influencer on short-video
platform TikTok who describes herself as a former Lululemon
employee.
As the holiday shopping season gets under way, top-sellers
from Lululemon, Abercrombie & Fitch ANF.N , Birkenstock
BIRK.N and Estee Lauder's EL.N Tom Ford perfume are
competing for shoppers like Maginness and their growing love
affair with TikTok-popularized "dupes" - sufficiently similar
replicas of higher-priced products.
CRZ Yoga is doing brisk business, selling an average 88,633
pairs of the leggings a month and earning around $2.84 million
in average monthly revenue, according to data from e-commerce
analytics firm Jungle Scout. CRZ, which according to its website
is owned by a Hong Kong trading company, did not respond to a
request for comment.
Growing demand for lookalike products, coupled with a
pullback in spending due to inflation, is cutting in to sales of
some trendy, big-name products. “Dupes” have become so widely
accepted, particularly among younger consumers, that Maginness
said she would consider gifting a faux-Lululemon activewear set
to a friend. “After all, you do have more room in the budget
with the dupe,” she said.
Hashtag searches for dupes of major brands - including Skims
underwear and Deckers' DECK.N Ugg boots - have been viewed
millions of times on TikTok. Influencers accepting commissions
regularly tout similar, alternate products from value retailers
such as Walmart WMT.N , Target TGT.N and fragrance e-tailer
Dossier.
Last week, "Passionate Penny Pincher," a discount blog that
accepts commissions for sales, touted $29.99 Dearfoam shearling
"Ugg dupe slippers" as holiday gifts in an email to followers.
Department store chain Nordstrom JWN.N pitched original "Ugg
slippers on everyone's gift list" for $115.
Dupes have become so widely available from such a broad
range of sellers that experts say it is difficult to quantify
how much market share they may steal from the original products
this holiday season. Most at risk are brand-name perfumes,
cosmetics and mid-tier clothing and footwear, particularly those
"commodity" products that are easy to replicate, said Leslie
Ghize, executive vice president of retail consulting firm
Doneger Tobe.
Twenty-eight percent of U.S. consumers said they plan to
give a beauty product such as perfume as a holiday gift and 55%
plan to give clothing, shoes or accessories, according to a
survey of 3,429 people by Circana Inc.
Lululemon, whose revenue rose 18% in the second quarter
compared with a year earlier, launched a two-day “dupe swap”
promotion in Los Angeles in May where shoppers could trade
lookalikes for Align leggings. Lululemon declined to comment.
Chief Executive Officer Calvin McDonald told investors in June
that roughly half of shoppers who attended the dupe swap were
under 30 and new to Lululemon.
FROM FAST FASHION TO E-COMMERCE
Experts say the current excitement over dupes traces back to
the start of fast fashion. Inditex ITX.MC -owned Zara, which
opened its first store in 1975, made a business of replicating
luxury designs. Its shorter production cycles allowed more
styles to enter the market quickly, sparking "the habit of
shopping more frequently," said Ian Taplin, a professor at Wake
Forest University.
E-commerce platforms Amazon, eBay EBAY.O , Shopify
SHOP.TO and Etsy ETSY.O helped dupe sales accelerate, by
making it easy to compare prices on similar goods. Newer
technologies like the Google Lens app allow people to take
photos of items they like and find similar products for sale.
For prospective dupe-makers, the Chinese marketplace Alibaba
9988.HK makes it simple to find and hire manufacturers. Some
manufacturers use the same materials and fabrics as big-name
brands, said Juozas Kaziukenas, founder of e-commerce analytics
firm Marketplace Pulse.
In other cases, dupe sellers opt to replicate the look of
higher-priced originals with cheaper materials to maximize
profit.
Either way, sellers on shopping platforms like Amazon
typically do not have the same overhead costs as retailers with
brick-and-mortar locations, allowing them to bring goods to
shoppers more cheaply. "They might not be exactly the same, but
they're much cheaper," Kaziukenas said.
Thirty to 49% of shoppers have been disappointed with
"dupes" purchased online, according to a survey of 3,000
millennial and Gen-Z consumers conducted by consumer review
platform Trustpilot across the U.S., UK and Italy.
Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti said the company does
not allow its sellers to use the words “dupe,” “fake” or “faux”
connected to a brand name when describing their products on the
site. However, it cannot always keep up with sellers who violate
the rule, according to Mike Scheschuk, president of small and
medium business at Jungle Scout.
As of last Wednesday, multiple products available on Amazon
appeared to violate the policy, including a pair of clogs listed
as "dupes" of a popular style by Birkenstock and priced more
than $100 below than the original.
A spokesperson for Birkenstock said it "takes the issue of
brand and product piracy very seriously" and takes a "rigorous
approach" to defending its intellectual property. However,
experts say dupe sellers have grown increasingly skilled at
avoiding brand logos and other design features that could
infringe existing patents or copyrights.
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(Reporting by Katherine Masters in New York Additional reporting
by Dorothy Kam in Hong Kong
Editing by Vanessa O'Connell, Rod Nickel and Matthew Lewis)
((mailto:Katherine.Masters@thomsonreuters.com;))