As we all know, there will always be knockoffs of most sought after items. However, for the shoe industry it has grown in huge amounts, eBay has recently been flooded with fake merchandise specifically shoes, Nike sporting shoes to be exact (i.e., Nike Dunk, Dunk SB, Air Force 1, Air Max, Air Jordan) and users who will stop at nothing to get an honest hardworker's money by using trickery to buy their illegitimate merchandise. This guide will help you spot these fakes and help you save some of your own money.

While searching for your favorite shoe, always keep your eyes peeled for any suspicious activity going on with any eBay users. Some key things to keep in mind are descriptive pictures, a good product description and a good eBay feed back history.

Keeping track of the eBayer's user profile:
Usually, an eBayer's feedback can tell you if you can trust him/her. If an eBayer has negative feedback, you should always look to see what it involved. If his/her feedback includes words such as "FAKE MERCHANDISE" or "SELLS FAKES" then these are obvious redflags for you NOT to do business with this person. Also, many of the non authentic shoes on eBay originate from China so you must always becareful when doing business from overseas party, usually you would want to keep away from users out of the country due to customs and other problems shipping might cause.

Looking at the product description carefully:
An item that is posted on eBay should ALWAYS have a description. Usually, this description tells you all you need to know about the item you are bidding on. Authentic shoes will always contain the words "100% AUTHENTIC", however sometimes counterfeit shoe products may contain these words as well, this is what everyone needs to be away of (you can try to validate the 'AUTHENTIC' statement by looking at the picture for more evidence - located in the next topic). For the most part, if an eBay listing does not say their shoe product is AUTHENTIC then it is very questionable. The best thing to do in this case is actually emailing this person to confirm the authenticity of the item. Also, if the item description says "100% brand new" or "100% guarunteed" these are words used by many eBayer's to lure users in, in hopes of tricking you.

Overviewing pictures of the shoes:
One of the BEST ways to tell weather the product is authentic or fake is by looking at the pictures. Usually the pictures give you a good look of the shoes. If the shoes look poor of quality in anyway, they are very suspect to be fakes. Not only that, but most of the time shoes sold on eBay are being resold, making the box have an actualy price tag from a retail store. Here are some examples:
FAKE:

Notice how you can obviously see the quality difference in both pictures. Many eBayer's that sell fake shoes usually include few pictures of their shoes to conceal the obvious evidence that let you know they are fake. Real shoes contain many pictures and ALWAYS show the inside tag of the shoe, fakes do NOT.

This small peice of information hold the key to the shoe being authentic or not, for the most part if a listing does not contain this you must request it inorder to confirm authenticty. The date under the barcode on the left should ALWAYS be touching the barcode if there is ever a space between the item is an obvious fake.
On another note, pictures should ALWAYS be tagged by the eBay user. Why? Because most of the time people steal picture on the internet and use them as their own to fool others.

Overall:
Overall, fake shoes are always listed poorly and contain little information. But there are a few that still tend to lie even under high security. I cannot post any links of live auction, but if you go to eBay and search for any item related to "NIKE DUNK SB" or "NIKE AIR FORCE 1" you can find many auctions that look very authentic and convicing, this is where you must be on the lookout. Notice how an aution may seem authentic? These types of things are very hard to spot because of the time they spend making sure it looks like an authentic auction. BUT! if you view his/her feedback and it reads PRIVATE with under 100% feedback, it may raise a red flag. My only advice would be to look at the pictures and see what the user is selling. If this person may be selling many of the same item and this item is either discontinued or rare then you should be aware. As long as the eBayer is willing to negotiate and talk or answer any questions you may have, please ask them before proceeding. It is defintely the best thing you can do when confused.

 HELPFUL HINTS & GUIDLINES!!! (What to look out for!)