Slightly Smarter On … Dupes 🧐
What matters: Online ubiquity coupled with the rise of fast fashion and next-day delivery has permanently altered consumer spending and behavioral habits, and dupes have now entered everyone into the race for social and cultural relevance. So, how should brands respond?
Grantray-Lawrence Animation
Luxury is back for younger generations—or at least the aesthetic of luxury. On social media and in public, millennials and Gen Z are often seen walking around with expensive-looking items. In reality, all they are is expensive looking, as most of these items are dupes.
WHAT IS A DUPE?
In the early 2000s, if something was called a “dupe,” it meant that it was a duplicate product by the same or an adjacent brand. In today's world, it means an alternative to a product that is equal parts similar looking and more cost-conscious. Why spend $250 on something when you can go on Amazon, Shein, Alibaba, or DHGate and get the same product for 90 percent cheaper? It makes sense that #dupe has over 4.5 billion views on TikTok—and with social media turning the web into Canal Street, you can wear the same look as the person you are copying at a fraction of the cost.
COPYCAT CULTURE
Copycat culture is not new and not limited to Gen Z and younger. People have been copying stuff since the beginning of time in order to keep up with the Joneses. Only now with social media, it looks different and moves at hyper-speed—and Gen Z is the photographed generation. That, in conjunction with the world's chronic technology addiction, has bred this never-ending search for the newest and coolest thing.
LEGAL + FIGHTING BACK
Brands have little recourse in combatting “dupe” products if they don’t breach IP laws or infringe on copyrights. So instead of battling them in court, brands have had to try and think outside the box to combat this trend. Lululemon hosted a day where customers could bring in any dupe leggings and trade them in for a pair of black Align High-Rise Pant 25”. This is a great example of how a brand with a staunch following leaned into the trend and faced it head-on, letting its own product do the talking.
THE CATALYST
If the combination of fast fashion and social media has ignited the dupe trend, livestream shopping has set the place ablaze. Globally, live commerce is already a $512 billion market—and that’s without much contribution from the U.S., which is projected to see $32 billion in live sales by the end of 2023. Even so, that’s a small fraction of its large-scale potential. Despite the difficulties the U.S. has seen in the livestream shopping market, there is still opportunity for significant growth, and the trend is likely to grow stateside.
THE RISE IN SOCIAL COMMERCE
Social platforms have evolved to become a place for nearly everything, including searches, product discovery, and shopping. In fact, social commerce sales are expected to hit $2 trillion, and dupes will be front and center in that transformation. With 60 percent of daily TikTok users already claiming they are likely to make purchases through social media, we will start to see no shortage of ways to tap into this growing market.
CHRONICALLY ONLINE
Gen Z spends on average three hours a day on social media; millennials spend two hours and twenty-five minutes. This online ubiquity, coupled with the rise in fast fashion and next-day delivery, has permanently altered consumer spending and behavioral habits, and dupes have now entered everyone into the race for social and cultural relevance. Content—and being glued online—has shifted the world from “Keeping Up with the Joneses” to “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
Honeymoon’s Take
WINNERS
Consumers: In the short term, dupe culture will be seen as a win for the consumers and general culture. Access to endless content, coupled with the ability to buy anything that’s adjacent to what your favorite celebrity or influencer has, is an empowering feeling. It makes you feel connected and like you’re a part of their journey.
BNPL Companies: Gen Z could also be seen as the “Buy Now, Pay Later” generation. Over 61 percent of Gen Z consumers have bought items using BNPL, and that trend doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
Shein, Alibaba, Amazon, and DHGate: These companies are, in some ways, the suppliers of culture—they have changed how younger generations have shopped and introduced cheap goods and next-day delivery. What’s more, good IP lawyers are helping them navigate counterfeit allegations by not directly knocking off products, using different names and descriptions, and toeing the legal line.
Legal Departments: LVMH alone has more than 60 lawyers involved in tackling such cases, and spends $17 million annually on legal action against counterfeiting. And LVMH is not alone—retailers around the globe are doing their best to beat back the cost of counterfeit goods.
Authenticators and RFID Tags: Investment in authentication technology—a model to be adopted by many brands, especially luxury brands—will soon follow, paving the way for things like specialty tags that are directly tied to inventory and other innovations to verify and authenticate products and purchases.
Blockchain Technology: An immutable ledger and proof-of-ownership, the blockchain and connected digital wallets may usher in a solution to combat counterfeiting and may even reward consumers as digital collectibles and NFT-enabled loyalty experiences continue to gain traction.
Luxury Brands: In the short term, legacy brands may falter a bit. But above all else, real luxury will differentiate itself and create a larger gap between the market of luxury consumers and those who cosplay. Having a real pair of AirPods, or a real Hermes bag, will carry more weight and status than before.
LOSERS
Targeted Brands: Brands affected by dupes will lose out in the short term. Yet while this is a hard pill for a lot of brands to swallow and presents a real challenge to them right now, the silver lining may be how brands react. Take, for example, the lululemon example above.
Quality: One of the biggest losers in this whole scenario is the industry standard. Part of the allure of luxury is that it withstands the test of time.
The Environment: Today, the fashion industry is responsible for 10 percent of global carbon emissions. By 2030, the World Bank projects the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions could increase to more than 50 percent. And then there’s the waste, like the clothes deserts in Chile.
What to Do About Dupes?
The way your brand reacts to this trend has to feel, well, on brand. A legacy luxury brand like Louis Vuitton has to address dupes differently than a new-age CPG brand like Graza did when it started a social media olive oil war.
LUXURY CLASS
Luxury brands have gained in popularity because they are seen as exclusive and aspirational. High-end brands can call out—even benefit from—knockoffs in their messaging, highlighting that there’s “nothing like the real thing.” Their truth is that though they may look the same, they will never feel the same or hold the same real value.
CULT ENABLERS
For brands that have high social value and foster a tight-knit community and cult-like following, catering to that community in a way that reinforces the values and brand equity of those brands can go a long way in dupe culture. For brands like lululemon, the focus was on giving away expensive merchandise to project confidence in their product and mission. They fought for a spot in their core consumers’ hearts—and closets—letting them know they would rather lose money than have them wear cheap knockoffs, taking it as a form of flattery and turning it into a good PR moment.
ACT ACCORDINGLY
The most important thing for brands to remember is to not let a trend take you away from what you stand for. Continue to show up authentically on the platforms you operate on, and stay the course. In the end, the only people who know brands better than themselves are their customers.
Jonny Edelson is a Strategic Analyst at Honeymoon.