Archive for August, 2009

Authenticity: 1800-What???

At eDesignerShop we often get customers who call us letting us know they have been scammed by a site that popped up just long enough to take their money. The first question that our customer service reps usually ask is:

“Did you try to call them?”

One of the biggest warning signs that the Prada purse or the Fendi wallet you are about to buy is not authentic is if the “Contact Us” page of the particular website is missing any of the following crucial information:

1) Toll Free Phone Number. You should never have to pay a company to contact them, especially when you are about to spend hundreds of dollars with them. It’s the most basic of customer service to have a toll free number for customers to reach them. In case you were wondering, eDesignerShop’s toll free number is 888-498-1688.

2) Address for where they are located. Are they in the United States? Are they in Canada? Red flags should go up if they are located in China, where most of the knock off items are coming from. You should know where the company you are dealing with is based and ships from. How long before you get your items? In the case of eDesignerShop, we are both based and ship from the Silicon Valley in California. This means even when using Free Economy Shipping, your item will arrive to anywhere in the United States within 5-7 business days. Of course if you are in a hurry, express shipping is available.

3) Being a website, at the very least, anyone selling Balenciaga, Prada, or Fendi should at least have an email address. It would be almost impossible for a website to not have an email address to reach them by. However, you may want to try to email something to see if you get a response. A lot of the scammers never reply to their emails. In the case of eDesignerShop, you can email about a Tod’s handbag you are interested in, or check the inventory of that Leather Balenciaga City you want; we will get back to you within 24 business hours.

Basically any legitimate website should make it as easy as possible for you to contact them. Once you contact them, they should get back to you in a timely manner if they expect you to do business with them. So, before you buy that Prada Leather Handbag from a website you’re not familiar with, DOUBLE CHECK that you can contact them and they will get back to you. Making that phone call or waiting a day for the response email could save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

You can contact eDesignerShop from any of the ways found on our Contact Us Page: http://www.edesignershop.net/store/pg/1-Contact-Us.aspx

COTM August: Green, All Shades, Forrest to Neon

So what is it about the color green? Green is found in many famous references, from “Green Eggs and Ham” to the myth about green M&M’s (this is a G rated blog, so if you don’t know about green M&M’s, you can google about it) and of course the good luck it brings all year round, not just St. Patricks Day. Of course every luxury designer from Prada to Fendi to Balenciaga uses SEVERAL shades of green.

Currently, the winner when it comes to shades of green on eDesignerShop is Balenciaga, with 3. Shades. Baby Green, Apple Green, and Green, which is a darker shade of green:

Balenciaga Green Bags

Balenciaga Green Bag on Katie HolmesIf you like green Balenciaga handbags, you aren’t the only one. Many celebrities are in love with Green Balenciaga handbags also! Here we see Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise with baby Suri matching and looking great with her green Balenciaga handbag. Although Tom and Katie are dressed in very basic black and white colors, green goes absolutely perfect with it!

You Can see all of Balenciaga’s Green bags here: http://www.edesignershop.net/store/Search.aspx?SearchTerms=balenciaga%20green

kate_moss_mulberryHowever, if it comes to the largest number of green bags, Prada is by far the winner. eDesignerShop has almost 20 green items by Prada, which range from handbags to keychains. Kate Moss was recently spotted carrying a Green Prada Bag. The color goes well with her outfit. It stands out, but at the same time, it’s not too flashy.

To shop our collection of Green Prada items, see here: http://www.edesignershop.net/store/Search.aspx?SearchTerms=prada%20green

New styles come and go almost daily, so check soon and check often.

Authenticity: We All Love Yahoo and eBay, but…

Every online store has to have some sort of shopping cart software behind it from Amazon.com, to NeimenMarcus.com , to LouisVuitton.com to our website, eDesignerShop.net. It takes a lot of investment to build a secure, professional, dependable site.

What about small companies or individuals that want to sell online? One great avenue is eBay, where you don’t have to have a store at all to sell your items. It only costs a few dollars to list an item and it’s out there. If you have a lot of items to sell, you can open up a yahoo store which costs less than $40 to start.

So if these sites are great, why should you be wary of buying designer products there? First, they are easy and cheap to setup, but they can just as easily disappear. During the years we seen many yahoo stores come and go with the wind, leaving customers scratching their head wondering where to get support, refunds, or questions answered. This is of course the same with eBay sellers. Ebay as a site isn’t going anywhere, but individual sellers are not as dependable.

Because of these reasons, avoid buying expensive designer products from eBay or Yahoo stores. eBay is easy to spot, but how do you spot a Yahoo store? If you look at your browser, no matter if you are using internet explorer, firefox or any of the others, usually to the left of the website address is where you will see the logo of the company.

Here is the butterfly of Neimen Marcus:neimenmarcus

Here is the “A” of Amazon:amazon

eDesignerShop eDS:edesignershop

And for your reference, All the yahoo stores, no matter what their name is, will display the Yahoo Y! logo, including sites like ampmfashion.com:yahoostoreSo today’s tip: If you are worried about authenticity, buy from a site that you know will be around. It costs no money to open an account on eBay to sell and Yahoo stores cost less than $50! Why buy a $200+ item from a place that pays less than that to be in business?

We will be back in the following weeks with more authenticity tips for you. To see our collection of authentic designer handbags, go to: http://www.edesignershop.net

You know you’re there when you see the eDS logo :)