2 | shoplastyle
August 2, 2011 at 12:35 pm

We took this comment very seriously and emailed with Melisah about her claim that she was sent counterfeit merchandise. Included below is some of the email correspondence that we had with her regarding her concerns. If you are concerned about whether ShopLAStyle.com sells counterfeit merchandise, then please contact us. We have excellent relationships with the brands that we sell on the site and can easily provide confirmation about the quality of our merchandise.

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Hi Melisah,

I decided to take some time to do some research on this situation. I know for a fact that all of our jeans are authentic, but I also believe you and what you are saying about the jeans you received from us. Why would you make something like this up?

We only have 3 pairs of the Collectors Amber COH jeans left, including the size 26 that you sent back. When I looked at all 3 pairs, the size 26 was different and just like you described. The stitching was a different color, the patches were different colors, the inside tag said COH while the other 2 listed out CITIZENS OF HUMANITY, the wash was a little lighter, the hardware was different and I agree that the weight was slightly different. I looked at our history with this jean and we have been stocking this style for almost 3 years and have received new shipments of it 4-5 times a year since then until it was discontinued by COH earlier this year.

I can see from a consumer point of view that the best explanation for these differences is that the jean is counterfeit. I think I would think the same thing if I hadn’t been in this business for over 8 years. The reality of apparel manufacturing is that brands change the way they brand their merchandise (the reason that the paper tags and writing inside were different), they change the factories they use and where they source their fabric. Often, we will see that a brand will make changes to how they tag their merchandise, but we will receive units that have the old tagging mixed in with units that have the new tagging over the course of many months. In regards to the fabric differences, we honestly don’t usually catch that because of the volume of merchandise we have. I’m sure COH has their own set of business reasons for changing the hardware, fabric, wash etc that they could addrees better than I could. Our internal policy is that we give an item a new style number when the brand gives the item a new style number. Since COH kept selling the Collectors Amber under the same style number, even after making all of those slight changes, we continued to sell it as the same jean. Actually, the jean we sent you exactly matches the jean that we originally photographed back in 2009 and is the photograph still on the site. I think the correct conclusion is that we sent you a pair that is from an earlier cut in the Collectors Amber life cycle. The other 2 pairs that we have along with the ones you purchased from Nordstrom are from later cuts.

I do appreciate the fact that you pointed out these differences though I hope you see how there may be explanations beyond your expertise before making such emphatic claims on the internet. I believe you were stating what you sincerely felt was the truth. This experience helps us learn as retailers and will make us better at addressing these concerns with our customers. By the way, if we actually sold any counterfeit merchandise COH, along with the other brands we carry like 7FAM, Joe’s, etc would cut us off so fast that we would not have a business for long.