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🇻🇳 Vietnam /Crime & Justice

Cheap Nike and Adidas shoes may be fake, Adidas representative warns

From Tuổi Trẻ · () Vietnamese

Translated from Vietnamese and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Under investigation
  • A legal representative for Adidas in Vietnam said genuine shoes generally cost several million dong and are rarely sold at deep discounts.
  • He estimated that 99% of Adidas shoes sold outside the brand’s authorized store network are counterfeit, although enforcement efforts have removed many sellers.
  • Industry representatives said modern counterfeits are difficult to identify visually, even for professionals.

A pair of Nike or Adidas shoes priced at 600,000 to 700,000 dong may look like a bargain, but consumers should not assume they are genuine. Representatives of Adidas and Vietnam’s footwear industry say counterfeit goods remain widespread and increasingly difficult to detect.

Nguyen Truong An, who handles litigation and enforcement for the Ho Chi Minh City branch of Pham and Associates Law Firm, Adidas’s legal representative in Vietnam, cited a case in Khanh Hoa where authorities fined a shop for selling two counterfeit Nike and Adidas pairs for 1.3 million dong. Genuine products usually cost several million dong per pair, and sometimes tens of millions, he said. They are mainly sold through a relatively small number of authorized stores in major city centers.

Adidas clothing and footwear in Vietnam are also rarely offered at steep discounts, making genuinely cheap products difficult to find. “Adidas shoes sold outside the brand’s authorized store system are 99% fake, and we receive several counterfeit cases almost every week,” An said.

Adidas shoes sold outside the brand’s authorized store system are 99% fake, and we receive several counterfeit cases almost every week.

· Nguyen Truong AnHe described the scale of counterfeit Adidas sales outside authorized retailers.

Nguyen Van Khanh, vice chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Leather and Footwear Association, said buyers face a high risk of counterfeits when they purchase major brands outside official stores. Some genuine factory-defective goods may leak onto the market, but defective products account for only about 1% to 1.5% of output and are supposed to be destroyed. That volume cannot explain the large quantity of supposedly defective genuine goods sold cheaply.

Khanh said counterfeit products are diverse, with much of the supply coming from abroad. Manufacturers copy designs quickly and use increasingly advanced technology, forcing brands to change models regularly. Companies are reluctant to publish detailed authentication clues because counterfeiters could copy them. Even industry professionals can identify genuine products correctly only about 50% to 60% of the time by appearance alone.

Counterfeit goods are often produced in many forms, with most of them smuggled in from abroad.

· Nguyen Van KhanhHe discussed the supply of counterfeit footwear and the difficulty it creates for brands and consumers.
About this summary

Originally published by Tuổi Trẻ in Vietnamese. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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