Designer brand named products do not ship from China. Even if they are made there for the brand owner, they are not sold directly to customers like this, and they aren't sold for a quarter of their normal retail price. It doesn't matter how glossy and convincing the site is - and this is a good one - or how much you're told that the goods are authentic, they aren't. Not ever.

The Chinese meaning of the term "authentic" is "looks authentic". A true mirror-image fake may even be made of identical materials to the original, using identical patterns, but it's still a fake, even if, in incredibly rare circumstances, it's indistinguishable from the genuine item. The Chinese don't see it this way, arguing that if a replica is effectively the same product as the original, then it's equally authentic.

I think many Chinese retailers would be surprised that a buyer really expected to get the genuine article at prices such as those offered at this website, because that's just not going to happen. Therefore, the goods are fake and everyone should know it without being told. So they aren't told. What they are told is that the products are authentic, which in the case of a very cheap copy, means they look authentic.

It's getting harder to recognize the Chinese sites. This one gives itself away in ways I'm not going to say, but one you shouldn't miss is that when you reach the checkout, you are redirected to a credit card gateway company which is in China. The Trustwave badge you meet at the checkout, which belongs to the gateway, not the seller, reveals that this company is Shanghai Linkcardpay Co.Ltd.

There's no reason I can think of why a company selling authentic products and claiming to be US based, would use a Chinese credit card processor. That should be a warning to you right there, and luckily by the time you see that information you're almost committed but haven't yet entered your credit card information. There is still time to walk away.

As a general rule, if you're tempted to deal with a site that you've never heard of and you're in the general area of designer fashions, please bear in mind that every brand is copied by the Chinese and there are far more of these wholesale Chinese traders than there are genuine ones.

Most do not sell mirror-image replicas, even if they claim to do so. And since there's no way for you to judge before you buy, it's best to assume you're going to get a cheap phony.

If something looks too cheap to be true, that's exactly what you're going to get - something cheap that probably isn't going to fool anyone who knows how the authentic article looks and performs. Be very careful purchasing designer gear from any site that you have never used or heard of before. You only have a very remote chance of not being ripped off.