This application allows you to find cheaper alternatives to the product you are looking for. But it presents a major problem: its ethics.
You can find everything on the Internet, even a whole new market: that of duplicates or duplicates, almost perfect copies of luxury items sold at considerably reduced prices. On TikTok, the hashtag #dupe has billions of views, while online shopping sites are riding this trend, mixing bargains and counterfeits.
At the heart of this fashion, the Dupe application (and site) stands out as a search engine dedicated to discovering the best dupes on the market, currently concentrated in the field of furniture and interior decoration. Founded by Bobby Ghoshal and Ramin Bozorgzadeh, Dupe offers a simple solution: just paste the URL of a furniture item you like to discover a more affordable alternative. So, ethical or practical?
Disconcerting simplicity, a hit upon release, the founders overwhelmed by success
Dupe was created by Ramin Bozorgzadeh and Bobby Ghoshal, co-founder and CEO of Carrot, an app that already offers cheaper alternatives to products users browse online. Nikita Bier, creator of the high school social networks Gas and TBH, was also consulted for this project. Ghoshal and Bier began promoting this new initiative on Sunday March 24, 2024, saying they “ inaugurate generative shopping “.
Users can simply go to the webpage of the furniture they are looking for, add “dupe.com” in front of the page’s full address in the URL bar and press Enter. In a presentation video shared on X.com (formerly Twitter), Ghoshal begins by explaining: “ I have a taste for champagne, but a budget for beer “. On the screen, a Pierre Jeanneret kangaroo chair is displayed, sold for more than 30,000 euros on the site 1stDibs. Dupe springs into action; it presents a dozen similar wicker chairs, almost exact copies of those by Jeanneret, available on sites like eBay, Wayfair and AliExpress between 156 and 399 euros.
In just a few hours, Dupe received support from major Big Tech figures such as Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and investor Sahil Bloom.
This system is best suited for those looking for the best value for a certain style of furniture, such as an asymmetrical coffee table with a glass top and curved wooden legs, rather than copies of Isamu Noguchi’s iconic design. Or a sand-colored rug with gray trim (assuming the buyer agrees with nearly a third of reviewers complaining excessively about dupes).
The new platform encountered some technical issues and also experienced slowdowns due to the influx of heavy traffic on Monday March 25, 2024.
A success which somewhat disconcerted Bobby Goshal. “ I didn’t expect this to go viral so quickly. », he was surprised.
A practical side, but questionable ethics
If Dupe promises to do good business, it lives up to its name. It is part of the game of “fools”, a Russian roulette that can lead you to counterfeit items of poor quality, sold on e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress or Temu, which has already been the subject of related controversies for the sale of dangerous products. It is also important not to neglect the manufacturing conditions of certain products, which may come directly from sweatshops, these sweatshops which manufacture clothing sold on fast-fashion sites such as Shein. Traceability and “dupes” do not mix well.
Although Ghoshal says he works with his team to allow users to report fraudulent sites, in practice many results turn out to be simple fakes. Fast Company relates the emblematic case of the initial request for “dupes” of the lounge chair & ottoman by Charles and Ray Eames, an emblematic piece of mid-century furniture. This request was at the center of legal proceedings, with Herman Miller, an American furniture company, having in fact accused the “dupers” of trademark infringement.
Dupe fulfilled its role by offering three exact replicas of the armchair, including one from a Chinese company specializing in the production of faithful replicas of iconic furniture.
This is where all the ambiguity of Bobby Ghoshal and his application lies. Although it denies any intention of encouraging counterfeiting, the communication and the very principle of Dupe are based on the idea of finding good deals while acquiring products visually similar to high-end ones.
With a hint of mischief, the head of Dupe even suggests that his tool can be used in reverse, by searching for a “dupe” who will lead you to the high-end model. It remains to be seen whether users will adopt this reverse bargain search technique…
The adage “ Beware of counterfeits ” is still relevant.
Source : Fast Company
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