After 95 Luxury Appraiser: I Have Seen One Million Bags, Half Of Which Are Fake

In 2015, Peng Haofeng, 19, opened a luxury bag identification shop in Taobao, and identified the authenticity of luxury goods through logo, hardware engraving, zipper, oil edge and other details. At first, he helped people identify for free, and accumulated experience and reputation. Later, he became famous and ordered a lot. "Every day, the number of bags identified is dozens, and the number of bags is hundreds.".

Luxury bags are thousands of cheap, expensive no upper limit, but identification only needs dozens of yuan“ Photo identification has no legal effect, but it can make a peace of mind. "With the sinking of domestic luxury consumer market and the increase of demand, more and more people buy luxury goods through second-hand trading, purchasing agent and other channels. Many people come to Peng Haofeng for identification to" get off safely ".

Peng Haofeng's tested bags are mixed in half. Some people believe in the results, and some people scold them when they are told that they are "imitations". Luxury appraisers were originally born out of the proliferation of imitations, and there is no authoritative authority in this field.

In this business, we can see hypocrisy, trust, and all living beings.

01

Bright eyes at pixel level

Customers often question, "why can we identify only by pictures?" For this problem, Peng Haofeng can only return to "don't know".

Different from entity identification, Peng Haofeng's identification was almost completed online. The guests who come to the appraisal just need to take photos and provide detailed drawings according to the requirements, and Peng Haofeng can give a result, "if it's fast, it won't take two minutes.".

Detailed drawings often include logo engraving, leather grain, hardware chain, package side oil edge, serial number, etc., which are called "identification points" by luxury appraisers, and are often places where imitations are easy to show off.

"The genuine Gucci typeface seems to have strokes, while the imitations directly use the existing printing fonts in the font library". Luxury logo and coding have special typeface and engraving technology. If you want to reproduce, it not only needs extremely high technology, but also means great cost. Therefore, most of the imitators will directly use the words in the font to make codes.

On the Internet, there are online shopping agents sharing their own summary of the authenticity of the identification method, "Gucci's' 5 'is crooked, Hermes's' 0' is round rather than long, and maxmara's' 3 'is flat rather than round..." but for most buyers, even if they know the identification method, it is still very difficult to see the difference between the genuine and the imitation. With the improvement of the level of imitation, more and more imitations confuse the fake with the real, which requires more care and eye-catching.

Peng Haofeng's eyes can see that the fake "logo font is too large", "using Song typeface numbers that LV never used"... In the identification, he compared the details of the pictures provided by customers one by one in his mind, like the program of executing some algorithm.

Please look at several logos of genuine LV, and then choose one that you think is genuine (see the end of the article for the answer).

Because the input information is only pictures, in order not to affect the accuracy, we need to patiently prompt and guide customers to take photos. Different from portrait shooting, luxury details need close focus, and the shooting angle, light, clarity, etc. will affect the picture. Even the steel seal of some bags is on the inside of the interlayer. "Sometimes I have to shoot myself for more than ten minutes.".

In Peng Haofeng's Taobao store, the appraisal price has three grades: 80 yuan for Hermes and Chanel, 39.99 yuan for all kinds of luxury bags, and 25 yuan for answering questions and individual consultation on scarves and clothes. For different pricing reasons, Peng Haofeng's answer is, "because the cost is not the same, Hermes pictures are more troublesome, it takes more time and cost, and to query the number of Chanel, you need to have internal relations.".

But for some troublesome rich people, these grades are not important, "they are lazy to take photos, directly sent to me for physical identification.". But this kind of customer often built a deep trust, "believe I won't transfer, just dare to send it.".

02

Take a look at the window of the flashy world

The trust between clients and appraisers has been built over the years.

Peng Haofeng, who has been in the business of luxury package identification for nine years, has been a member of the Communist Party of China for nine years. He has also taught his apprentices. However, he has found that this skill and talent are extremely important. Some people can't see it, and even if they feel it, they can't say it. Later, he gave up and decided to go it alone.

Peng Haofeng is good at self-study. In his idea, "some knowledge can't be taught and can't be bought with money."“ When I was a child, I liked to fiddle with the mechanical structure in the four-wheel drive vehicle, and often patronized the waste station downstairs to "study the structure of abandoned TV".

Maybe it's because of his addiction to "what's not" that he's used to be solitary and silent most of the time. "Others will think I'm boring.". He finished his reading career before he finished sixth grade.

It is rebellious for most people to drop out of school at the age of 13, but his parents did not have too much contradiction with him. "Not everyone is suitable for school". He went to do bathroom installation, to Guangxi to make and install curtains, and then to do maintenance of famous watches. These works hardly lasted for two years. Until 2012, he began to set foot in luxury appraisal.

At that time, there was no concept of luxury appraiser. He wandered in various luxury forums of different brands every day. "Some people will send out their bags and ask them to identify whether they are true or not. There will be high-level people who leave messages to reply. These people are not appraisers, but fans of a certain brand.".

These pictures are Peng Haofeng's original "learning materials". The replies from those with high grades are his "reference answers". He doesn't have to take notes. "What he sees and learns is in his head.". After that, he also began to leave his own answers under the post of seeking identification, just like brushing questions again and again, and the whole process was "doing problems while learning". LV is the first brand he studied thoroughly. "Being able to do what others can't" is the source of his research pleasure.

The rise of luxury appraisers stems from the proliferation of fake goods“ At the beginning, there was no one on the Internet to do the identification, but I know that there are many imitations on sale, so I think you will have the identification demand. ". With the decline of luxury goods market and the expansion of demand, fake goods have become more and more popular.

The imitations are more and more refined, and the prices are also rising. For those customers who don't know, they don't realize that the bags they "spend a lot of money" on are actually fake goods. Once a customer asked Peng Haofeng to identify the authenticity of a Hermes bag. When she learned the results of the imitation, she could not believe it. "I spent 30000 yuan on this bag," Peng told her, "the genuine package cost 1.2 million yuan.".

The bags identified by Peng Haofeng are priced in tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and occasionally hundreds of thousands or even millions. The owners of the bags also come from different classes.

Herm è s Birkin is often the most expensive one. "Hermes bags can be matched by themselves. Choose crocodile skin, special processing, hardware with diamond... The price of the bag goes up immediately, but Hermes is also the most valuable one.". These people who can afford Hermes "may not be rich and free, but most of them are successful in their careers.". Having a rare Hermes Birkin means not only a lot of money, but also strong relationships.

Peng Haofeng seemed to take a glance at the window of the flashy world. A 3000 yuan spoon and a 250000 yuan pendant made him understand that "some people have so much money that they don't know how to spend it"; He bought more than a dozen bags from purchasing agent, but only three genuine customers let him know that "being greedy for cheap goods always leads to losses".

03

There is no authority in this business

In March of this year, a consumer bought a gucci belt at vipshop. In order to change hands, the consumer went to dewu app for identification, but got the result of non authentic identification. After that, vipshop gave the report of "conformity" identified by CIQ in Guangdong Province, and the "imitation" identification report given by CIQ Shanghai.

In this "luoshengmen", vipshop and dewu app both produced the appraisal report of China Inspection and Certification Group, but the two appraisal results of CIQ Guangdong and CCIC Shanghai were "fighting" with each other.

Although the entity identification report of CIQ is widely recognized in the industry, there is still no authority in the industry. The luxury goods purchased by consumers outside the counter channel can only be identified by means of a third-party platform. No matter which luxury appraisal institution or individual issues the identification result, it will not be officially recognized by the brand and has no legal effect at all.

"People who are not confident can't do this business. Some customers will try to test your level with a product that he knows the results". In the face of some misleading words, the appraiser can only gain the trust of customers only by believing in their own judgment. Some customers will find different appraisers in Taobao to cross check the results, but even if faced with different results, Peng Haofeng will adhere to his own opinion.

He received an identification of a wrong version of LV drum bag, "the mark is negative, but it is indeed genuine"; A second-hand coach with hardware wear was suspected to be a fake, "but it is actually genuine. The quality of coach hardware is average, and the wear is normal"; We have also met many genuine and fake ones judged by other appraisers, especially some middle ancient bags. "The engraving of bags has been used since the end of 1990s. Although it is different from cash engraving, it is really authentic

In China, there is no authoritative luxury appraiser in China. The basis of identification is based on the trust of customers. "Those who believe in your technology will believe the results you give, and then they will come to you for identification.". In addition to individual customers, there are also purchasing agents, second-hand businesses to find Peng Haofeng identification, "one is a hundred.".

Every year, Valentine's day, 520 and other gift related nodes are also the busiest time for Peng Haofeng, "guess how many pairs can I break up?"

Some customers came to identify it and said it was given by her boyfriend, but the result was false. When he wanted to send the identification results, the girl's boyfriend sent a message asking if he could change the result, not to say it was false. "He said it very desolate, I heard it all soft, and finally sent the screenshot of the chat record with her boyfriend.".

Some businesses come to their homes and want to collude with him in acting, "let customers come here to identify, and then I gave them all. Ask me the price, I say two million at a time. "; There are also those who hold counterfeit bags to identify, "want to know where the problem is, and improve the process", but he generally does not say the reason, only the result; There are even fake manufacturers who want to hire him as a technical advisor, but they are all rejected by him.

Nowadays, fake goods are becoming more and more true. Some core identification points are broken by counterfeiters. What's more, they will tear off the label of the real package and put it on the fake package. "At first glance, the fake goods of * * look very real, but on the whole, there are still flaws, and the fake is still fake.".

Peng Haofeng roughly calculated that more than one million bags had been identified by him, but he was still not interested in them. "When you need to hold things, plastic bags are very convenient. If you make money, you can eat enough.". He still likes to do things that others seem boring, "such as spending half a month to transform the appearance and interior of the car.".

In his circle of friends, there are leisure rich people who drink tea, play golf and do yoga, as well as busy white-collar workers and ordinary college students. We are involved, or take the initiative to rush to this flashy world, want to have more, more. Peng Haofeng chose to stay in the small town he grew up in, with his family and friends, where the sea breeze is blowing and the traffic lights are few. "It's very convenient to go anywhere."