News Every Day | 28 March 2024, 08:00

‘It’s all coming from the literal same factory’: Shopper shares hack to finding whether boutique clothes are available on Amazon or Shein for cheaper

A TikToker posted a viral video telling shoppers how to reverse image search their clothing to make sure they're not spending too much on low-quality items.

Erin Confortini (@itserinconfortini) has reached over 3.6 million views and 410,000 likes on her video by Wednesday. She captioned her video, "this jaded london shein stuff is sending me … so here's how to reverse image search for clothing to make sure you're getting the best deal."

To start her video, Confortini mentions, "Did you see the video on here where the girl bought the $160 set from some kind of like designer?"

"I think it was like Jaded London or something like that," she adds. "It came with a tag on the side that said Shein on it."

She seems to be referring to a situation the Daily Dot recently covered in which a customer bought a $180 set from popular streetwear brand Jaded London only to discover the $83 top had a Shein tag sewn into it.

Since the customer's video went viral, Confortini says, "Everyone's realizing now that regardless of where we're buying our clothes, it's all coming from the same factory over in China, and they're just slapping different labels on it and charging us a way higher price."

Next, Confortini says she will show viewers "how you can reverse image search your clothes to make sure you're not spending $100 on a piece of clothing when it's being sold on Amazon or Shein for like $20."

Using the green-screen effect, Confortini talks over a screen recording she made while in the Settings app on her phone.

Once you're in settings, Confortini says, "Search [for] Safari, scroll down to Request Desktop Website, click on that, and make sure this All Websites [tab] is toggled on."

After opening the Safari browser, Confortini says the next step is to search for Google, which she says is "going to look a lot more like a website rather than the mobile app."

"In the top right-hand corner, click on Images. [Then] 'Search any image with Google Lens,'" she continues.

Then, Confortini shows a picture of a dress she says she took from the Princess Polly website. "This is the photo that I'm going to upload into the Google lens thing," she says.

The Google search results of her upload present different images of the dress from various retailers, along with the associated price.

"And, as you can see here, it is being sold for $64 on Princess Polly, $14.96 on Walmart, and $16.99 on Amazon," she says.

Before ending her video, Confortini adds, "I feel like we went through a couple of years here of shaming people for ordering things off of Shein, and now we're kind of realizing that we're literally all wearing the same garbage."

@itserinconfortini
this jaded london shein stuff is sending me - literally everything is made in the exact same factories & different labels are just slapped on them so heres how to reverse image search for clothing to make sure you’re getting the best deal :)
♬ original sound - Erin Confortini

Viewers in the comments section agreed with Confortini. "Amazon sellers are also buying off shein and then charging triple the prices," one said.

"Wait until people figure out DH gate lol," another wrote, referring to a Chinese e-commerce site that has become popular for its designer replicas.

One suggested, "Google lens furniture too, you'll thank me later."

Another said, "JUST USE A GOOGLE LENS ON YOUR PHONE!" to which Confortini responded, "I did click the camera icon beside google, I just don't have the app on my phone so used browser."

As the commenter suggests, it is possible to use Google Lens without going through the steps Confrontini detailed. According to PocketLint, you can use Google Lens through the Chrome mobile app on both Android and iOS devices. To do so, "Simply tap and hold on an image in Chrome, and select the option to search with Google from the pop-up menu. The Google Lens UI will then appear with information about the image."

When using the desktop version of Chrome, PocketLint says, "Right-click on an image. In the menu, choose Search image with Google. Search results pop up on the right side of your screen. You can click the expand button in the corner to view results in a new tab."

There is also a Google Lens app on the Google Play Store, and the Google app available in the App Store has Lens capability.

The Daily Dot reached out to Confortini via email and TikTok direct message.

The internet is chaotic—but we'll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot's web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

The post ‘It’s all coming from the literal same factory’: Shopper shares hack to finding whether boutique clothes are available on Amazon or Shein for cheaper appeared first on The Daily Dot.