With so many fake Air Jordans going around ebay, and the fact that "Air Jordan" is one of the top searches, I thought I would share some simple tips to help avoid buying a pair of fakes. 

1. Make sure the seller at least says the shoes are authentic in the description.  Some sellers will just not mention whether or not they are, which should raise a red flag. Look for a "guranteed authentic or your money back" type of claim.  This will tell you that the seller knows his product is authentic and is willing to prove it.  FYI-  "Factory variants" are the same thing as  fakes or brand rip-offs.  It's just  a  nicer way of saying it.

2. Make sure the shoes LOOK real. The easiest way to spot a fake is the color/style of the shoe.  If the shoes have Gucci or other high-end product print on them (i.e. LV), THEY ARE FAKE. Nike/Brand Jordan never produced anything with a Gucci logo on it.  These varients will be lower quality as well.  If you are unsure if the color is one that was acutually produced by the company, do an Internet search for the shoe to find out (In style shoes & air-jordans.com are good sites for reference).

3. The pics provided must be from the seller. No generic pic of the shoe that can be found in numerous other auctions, and they must have multiple pics.  If they are not provided, contact the seller and ask for more pictures.  Have them tag the pics as well (with a piece of paper w/ their ebay name on it placed next to the shoes). If they don't respond or refuse to provide more pics, avoid the seller.

4.  Feedback is important, but can be misleading.  You obviously want perfect or near perfect feedback, but be sure to read the comments left by buyers.  Hopefully someone wrote something like "authenctic shoes" or "legit seller."  If anyone left anything about poor quality shoes or fakes, and the person leaving the feedback has a solid rating as well (no zero or negative rating), proceed with caution.

5. It is best if the seller is located in (and ships from) the U.S., especially if you are in the U.S. Most fakes come from Asia (where they are produced) and those sellers rarely sell authentic products.

6.  Look at the seller's other items for sale.  Does he have multiple pairs of the same shoe and in multiple sizes? If so, chances are they are not real, especially if it is a hard-to-find shoe.  In some cases though, sellers will buy up multiple pairs from a store to resell on ebay, but this is rare.

7. Check the price and bid history of the item.  If the price seems too-good-to-be-true, it probably is. Unless the seller listed the item wrong ("Jordon" istead of "Jordan"), the reason the price is so low is because other sellers know it isn't authentic.  Even when an item title is misspelled, you want to be careful- either the seller doesn't know what he is selling (which might be good for the buyer) or he intentionally spelled it wrong because it isn't really that product.

8. If possible, wait until the last few hours of the auction to decide to bid.  This way you can gauge how many other people want the shoe, and thus, how credible the product is.