Did Tiktok told you that you should buy luxury goods directly from China? Experts say carefully proceed

Do you think you found a lot at Tikkok to buy Lululemon or Louis Vuitton directly from the factory? Experts say you may want to think about how real the claims in this video are.

In the past few days, social media users who claim to have an inside of how and where luxury brands are really made have been online, especially at TikTok.

In the videos, users claim to be Chinese manufacturers, or Say you have friends in high positions In factories that make luxury goods. They continue to say that brands such as Louis Vuitton, Lululemon, Hermes and more produce their products in China, and claim that the articles are manufactured for much less than they are sold.

Some of the videos also offer Links or website names That you can say that users go to buy versions of your favorite products from the same quality, but for a fraction of the price.

Others such as @lunasourcingchina that shared A Very popular video The claim that Lululemon products directly from Chinese factories for 5 or 6 US Almost identical username And content styles remain.

Inga Trauthig, a research professor who studies cyber security at Florida State University, repeat many of the videos specific messages – such as the claim that China has the best supply chains – and this accuses Red flags.

Some of the accounts – how This onePresent This one And This one The profile of the same supposed manufacturer – has only a few followers and released their first videos days ago. Many of the same videos were also published in these accounts. Some of their followers also have no profile images, random user names and strange contributions on their pages, which indicate that these accounts are bots.

According to Trauty, accounts are new and followed by possible bot accounts indicate that they could be part of a propaganda campaign. Errors in video or audio quality also indicate that these videos could be propaganda, says Trauthsig, since this type of imperfection can occur if the creators of propaganda edit and convert content for several videos and try to spread their message as far and wide as possible.

It would be impossible to say whether these videos are actually made by real Chinese manufacturers or whether they could be part of a Chinese state campaign without further research, says Trautig-Ins, especially in view of the trade war, both the government and the business owner would stimulate to make videos like this that promote production within the country.

Tikkok did not respond to the request of the CBC after a deadline by deadline about the type of contributions on their platform. Tikok has rules against the sale of counterfeits and says that it prohibits false or misleading content.

In any case, the intention of talking directly to the US consumers during the trade war is to project the trust in the quality of Chinese products, as US President Donald Trump claims that his country should do his own things.

The US government has already imposed 145 percent flat -rate duties on China, which would increase experts for the consumer prize for American consumers.

“What the Chinese want to represent … in these videos is: ‘It is not up to us, we can get you everything you want, we can get it cheaper for you,” said Trauthsig. “And that obviously blames the American government.”

Is our things that way?

Regardless of whether the videos are actually done by manufacturers in China or not, Samuel Rosco, a lecturer for supply chain and operating management at the Business School of the University of British Columbia, says that some of the contributions roughly describe how our supply chains work.

Fabrits in China or elsewhere often receive contracts from North American brands to produce a certain object, for example a few running shoes. The brand gives the manufacturer the blueprint for the shoe and the factory in China, according to Roscoe, often departs in its packaging before it is sent to a sales center in the western world. According to Rosco, the price you see on the shelves could be a surcharge of 50 to 100 percent from what the brand in China calculates the brand for the production of the product.

Lululemon does it Working with suppliers In a variety of countries, including China, and about 3 percent of the finished goods of the company in this country, the company CBC announced in a statement given by e -mail.

“However, Lululemon does not work with the manufacturers identified in the online videos and we ask consumers to be aware of the potentially fake products and misinformation,” said a spokesman.

Hermes and Louis Vuitton did not answer in good time to inquiries about comments. On Hermes’ website According to the brand, its production will take place “mainly” in France with additional production sites in Switzerland, Italy, Great Britain, the USA, Portugal and Australia. Louis VuittonOn the other hand, he lists France, Italy, Spain, the USA and Switzerland as countries in which its products are manufactured.

If these tictokers are actually manufacturers, as they claim, Rosco says that some of them can produce additional running shoes or leggings during a contract and are now surrounded by selling these products directly to consumers.

Other contributions – Like this one – Besides, they do not claim to have contracts with brands, but indicate that their craftsmen are just as good and much cheaper.

According to Rosco, the sale of excess products for a contract or sale of counterfeits would be both violations of intellectual property rights. In the past, he says that China quickly promoted these violations to make the country an attractive manufacturing center for western brands, but says that the appetite to follow the rules could change in view of a trade war with the United States

Manufacturers who work with large brands such as Lululemon are also a great risk in the production of this type of posts, since according to Rosco, the brands would quickly drop the factories that sell the end of line products.

“But … I think it’s a calculated risk to say: ‘Hey, we, you have to drop your tariffs and we will go back to protect your IP,” said Rosco.

Ordering directly is not that easy

Behrouz Bakhtiari, assistant professor at the Degroote School of Business at McMaster University, says that the videos probably don’t tell the whole story.

Take A Video advertising jeans for $ 1.30. This price would only apply to hundreds or thousands of couples, not just for one or two, not just one or two, as Bakhtiari emphasizes.

It is also no way to move us, as some said, says Bakhtiari. The tariff set of 145 percent applies to all articles, with the exception of the few goods such as Electronics Trump, which were later cut out.

“Even if you have bought a jeans, you still have to pay this (tariff),” said Bakhtiari.

The only exception for goods is below a certain value – but this rule also disappears in a few days. The liberation of minimis enabled packages that entered the USA with content worth less than 800 US dollars to be freed from taxes, but Trump signed an executive order At the beginning of April to put this exception into force on May 2.

For Canadian consumers, however, our country has tariffs In some Chinese goodsBut clothing is not one of them.

Nevertheless, Trautig warns of ordering any of these websites, since consumers should deal with the personal data and credit card information that they would hand over.

“One thing that we also know from our research in the online area is the political and economic often overlap,” she said. “So there may be people to deal with the pig’s own (in the trade war) and know that this is a political trend topic, but they are actually only there to cheat some American consumers.”