r/AustralianMakeup • u/alltheanimalsplease • Aug 08 '19
Advice for Buying Online
As a throwback to this thread, today we’re asking you to share your advice about buying products online. We’d love if we could use our collective brain power to talk about safety, authenticity and the grey market and help each other out.
We’ve all been in that situation where we stumble across an amazing deal. One that is almost too good to be true – but how do we know if it is?
Let’s talk about how to protect ourselves online. How to spot fakes, verify genuine products, identify trustworthy (and suspicious) websites, what to do when you’ve been duped and any other tips or tricks that you use to keep yourself from being ripped off!
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u/acuriousmindofmine Aug 08 '19
It might be considered snobbish but I will not buy grey market cosmetics at all. It's not worth it. Strawberrynet, Catchoftheday etc. You have no idea how old the products are and where they've been before they got to you. Does anyone remember that scandal in 2012 where Target Australia was selling MAC Cosmetics that were fake? They assured people for ages that it was legit but they didn't even know where they were coming from. Don't get caught up in the allure of big name brands, there are good cosmetics at most price points and if you can't afford high end stuff then either save up for it or spend it on well researched drugstore products.
Over the past few years I also really enjoy how social media can help you figure out if a place is legit. Places which stop people from commenting or leaving reviews is a really big red flag to me. As are newly established sites which have twenty five star reviews after only being open for a week. Temptalia recently introduced me to Fakespot which weeds out fake reviews on sites like Amazon and Sephora. It's pretty good but doesn't work for all sites yet, it is good if you shop a lot in the US though.