[olstar]

Nice post..

I prefer all tesco brand stuff, its the same and much cheaper most of the time

Anyway, i was talking to a mate of mine, and he used to be the managing director for helly hanson UK..

I was talking to him about fakes superstars, and some other bits and bobs - and he mentioned something called the GREY market.. not the BLACK market..

He gave me an example.

Lets for instance say adidas want a run of 4000 special edition superstars.. well the factory might only do runs of 8000 (for example)

So they sell 4000 to adidas - and keep hush hush about the other 4000.

They then find a buyer somewhere in the world to buy these sneakers, in a country where they cant get in trouble for it.

The shoes are shipped there but not with the same care that adidas would ship them (therefore packaging may be damaged) and probably in slightly different packaging as adidas may of only had 4000 adidas bags for the laces made up, so they just use any old bag etc.

Anyway, the kicks arrive in some random country, and as far as the factory knows they are sold, done deal, forgotten about.

But what they dont know, is that that country then sell them on to someone in the UK, completely legally, and then that person ships them out to people who then resell them on eBay and on market stores.

So what you have, is incorrectly packaged up "Fakes" that are not fakes at all.

Also, these factories that adidas use are probably not owned by adidas, and therefore probably keep the designs for themselves, release kicks based on adidas's designs but using inferior materials, and what you get then is slightly less convincing fakes..

OR they take a shoe, rip it to bits and try and duplicate it..

Thats when you get the really SHITE fakes..

So i think there is a lot more depth to it, and to be honest i think its something that someone like watchdog may be interested in as i think its one big worldwide fuckup on behalf of the factories that make the shoes for adidas, and adidas themselves!