What you see, is not always what you'll get!
Online shopping scams, we've all seen the pics on social media..... and it happens with costumes too!Coming into Oktoberfest, Halloween and well… just party season in general, we’d like to try and protect anyone buying costumes from being scammed and ending up with cheap rubbish!
It’s happened in the past, and it’s happening again….. Some online costume stores are using the photos from genuine brands to advertise and sell cheap knock-offs! What you see in the photo, is NOT always what you are going to get! We’ve all seen the funny posts about ordering online and not getting what you think you will, and this forgery happens in Australia too! It’s tempting though… we know…. Because you’ll see prices much cheaper! It’s that good ole chestnut guys….. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!! How do we know? Well we’ve had our feelers out, and we’ve actually purchased one of these cheap costumes being advertised using the genuine brand photo… ( we stock the real deal so we KNOW what it is and what it should look like! ) in this case it was a brand called California Costume – and guess what? We sure as hell didn’t receive the California Costume brand product that was advertised! Yup, it looked similar, but the fabrics were not good quality, there were major differences in the overall design, it did not include a petticoat, and the sizing was waaaaaaay off!!
The legit costume comes in branded packaging, complete with an information card with a printed photo of the costume, its inclusions and sizing, company details etc. The knock-off costume comes in a plastic bag…. That’s it. A plastic bag. Suss at all??!!
Have a look at the image below. The left side is the genuine California Costume brand costume and packaging. The right side is the cheap a** costume being sold online in Australia, using California Costume's photo!
We stock the brands of costumes we do, because we love them! We don’t want to stop supplying our loyal customers with the costume brands they love too, but if this forgery continues then well-known brands are also at risk…… this forgery puts the reputation of genuine brands at risk, it stops customers from purchasing these particular brands again because they’re experience will be that they’re bad quality, when really… they’re not!! Genuine brand costumes are great! It’s the cheap stuff being advertised and sold, illegally using brand name images, that's rotten! And guys…. There are Aussie online stores out there doing just that.
When we are advertising a genuine brand costume for $100, but you see the exact same photo selling ‘apparently’ the same costume for $50 – make sure your alarm bells are kicking in, because that would mean the other company are claiming to be able to sell the same genuine brand costume at BELOW COST PRICE!! If that were true….. the company wouldn’t be viable! They’d be bust!
This isn’t the first time we’ve busted a company flirting with their own reputation as well as the reputation of decent costume brands that don’t deserve this! Furthermore…. They’re playing you guys for fools and insulting your intelligence, just so they can make a quick buck!
Don’t get us wrong, we don’t have a problem with buying cheap stuff! Everyone loves a bargain! As long as it’s advertised as such and using photos of the actual costume itself…. What we DO have a problem with is deceit… the nouse of certain companies who think it’s ok to manipulate their customers and suppliers to try and monopolise an industry. Shame, shame, shame.
Some people are in this business because they love costumes……. Some aren’t!