Fake Fridays: The Shoe Garden
It’s Friday so that means we are back cleaning up the streets from these fakes and scammers. Last week we covered a store with a large following but sometimes smaller stores are equally damaging and its best to expose them before they get bigger and seem more legit. Despite having only 1500 followers, The Shoe Garden was a heavily requested store to check out with quite a few customers contacting us directly to say they have been lied to and scammed by the store. So let's get into it!
Like most of these questionable stores, they primarily sell Jordan 1s and popular Air Force 1s. They know these are the hyped products that people will search for and if they find a really good price, might not think twice and pull the trigger on a new Fugazi pair. They also state no refunds in their bio - another red flag the store is just after your money and will block any unhappy customers. They don't state anywhere that their products are a copy or replica of the real thing, leaving victims to assume they are legit as the photos The Shoe Garden post are.
Like all of these stores, The Shoe Garden post other people’s photos of an authentic product and ship you a bad, fake copy. This shot of the Air Force 1 above looks good, for example - but that's because it's actually a shot of a real pair. Some of their unhappy customers came through in our own DMs with some shots of the delivered product and… well, you’ll see for yourself.
These shots were sent to us directly from two completely different people who were promised authentic Air Force 1s but were lied to and scammed by The Shoe Garden. The build quality is visibly worse straight out the box and gets far worse after one wears it (as reported). Many pairs arrived damaged or pre-used and have a ridiculous Off-White red tag in an attempt to make it legit.
With some previous Fake Friday blogs, we have only been left to wonder what the delivered product will look like. And it's this uncertainty that catches a lot of people out. Luckily, this time our customers had us covered and you can see for yourself how much different the delivered pair looks when compared to the one posted on their IG. It's a different shoe completely.
When you complain about your terrible product, The Shoe Garden hides behind their 'No Refund' policy or don't respond at all. They take your money and don't care after that.
As many have pointed out before, any store that offers a discount if you buy 2 rare pairs is always suspect. Not only is the price too low to start with, but when you add the 2-pair special it gets even more ridiculous. An example is the Air Jordan 1 'Satin Black Toe'. It retailed for R2499 when it released but now fetches prices from around R7500 and up on the resell market. The Shoe Garden sells them at R1599 for 1 and R2599 for 2. There is no way a store would have so much stock of a rare sneaker that they could offer bulk deals, especially not at a price lower than retail. If their Jordan 1s were real, they would be selling them for a lot more as an authentic pair is worth a lot more in the real world. Simple.
If you still aren’t convinced that The Shoe Garden tricks their customers and sell fakes and only fakes, let’s take another look through the page. They sell Air Force 1 Shadows for women at R1499 or two for R2499. Despite the pricing being off (especially when you get their bulk deal), it is extremely suspect that a store would have so much of a popular release. When we release Air Force 1 Shadows at Shelflife, they sell out on the day normally or soon after and are extremely hard to restock from Nike due to the high demand. So how does The Shoe Garden get the hook up with unlimited pairs, so many they can do a bulk deal, and have a better price too? It’s because their pairs aren’t coming from Nike.
Comme des Garçons PLAY’s iconic striped long-sleeves retail for about R2000 (when in stock) overseas but The Shoe Garden has all sizes always in stock at R699 for 1 or R1099 for 2. They even slap their logo on the picture to somehow make it more legit.
Balenciaga ‘Mode’ tees at R850 when the retail price is closer to R7k. Other examples are various Jordan 1s and Sacai LDWaffles at laughable prices when you compare it to the real-world value on StockX, GOAT and similar, as well as a pair of the Maison Chateau Rouge Jordan 1s and some Air Force 1 that Nike never dropped but every fake store seems to have.
Shelflife Weekly Tip
If an IG store is offering bulk specials on rare or popular sneakers and the price is too good to be true - then it probably is. There is never an unlimited supply of popular releases like fake stores always seem to have. Hyped releases sell out and official suppliers don't always allow stores to restock due to the high demand.