Is your Sports Equipment Genuine or Fake?

The market of sports equipment has grown into something huge and is still growing; the brands are present in plenty. In fact, in the past decade or so, the number of brands has grown exponentially. Earlier, we used to have a few brands for cricketing equipment, and the same was the case with any other sports equipment.

On top of that, nowadays, pirated gears are present in abundance in the market. In addition to that, the current pirated sport goods are so top-notch, it is almost impossible to tell if that equipment is genuine or fake. Hence, it is getting complicated for people to find the gears they want.  

Therefore, Sportsuncle has brought a detailed guide to help you spot if your sports equipment is genuine or fake. In this piece, we will talk about a few brands and how you can use them to verify some equipment from those brands. 

How to find if your sporting equipment is real?

Fake products have become a significant problem for all sports enthusiasts. In addition to that, several myths are floating around about how to check the originality of an instrument. For instance, some people use web documented to verify equipment, and sometimes these documents are 4-5 years old, which are not usually in line with company changes and innovations.

What's more, some people call their "so-called expert" friends to verify the equipment, which is not right either they dont aware or having updated full knowledge. So, what's the proper way then? 

Let's talk about that according to brands.

Yonex India Sports Goods

The first name on the list is a renowned sporting brand- Yonex- and most people must have heard it. This brand is even more popular among badminton enthusiasts, and it is no surprise considering Yonex provides the best badminton rackets and other equipment in the market. And to check if an instrument is genuinely Yonex or not, do the following things.

Generally, all Yonex products have a sliver color scratch code to verify if the product is genuine or not. This code contains two parts on the upper side dealer code to whom the product is billed is mentioned, and below, you need to scratch the area to find the genuineness code.

To use that code, you need to open the website www.sunrisetnt.com and put the code. Keep in mind that a single code can be used only once. Plus, make sure to add a www in front of the website's name. Otherwise, the site might not open in some browsers for verification.

Yonex had to introduce this scratching verification mechanism to stop the bubbles of myths floating around Mavis 350 shuttlecocks. Specifically, some experts used to say the shuttles with a triangle are genuine, while some used to tell the square ones are real. However, we all know how difficult it is to stop this ever-going cycle of myths because most people have little knowledge. Hence, to fill this gap in knowledge, people assume what they think is right because they have experience of many years.

Furthermore, another misconception was that the badminton rackets with the JP code are genuine, while the SP one is fake. Of course, that's not true. Even though Yonex didn't release any official statement about the issue, but we know this for a fact that both articles are genuine and manufactured in Japan. And the codes are just as a representation of the sales division.

You might find people saying the SP variant's paint job is not good, or those are cheap. However, the truth is all Yonex rackets are imported by the importer Sunrise India in India. Plus, both the JP and SP cost almost the same, and there is nothing conclusive available about the paint job issue.

Lining and other Badminton Brands

Besides Yonex, the Lining India also uses the same scratch mechanism via- lining.com/fwcx to verify equipment's fakeness and originality. Due to some technical issue if code is not working or site not opening then you can also scan the QR code through your mobile scanner to verify.

Brands like Carlton, Apacs, Ashaway, Mizuno, Woods don't have any verification process yet at the time of writing this article. Neither products are available fake in India, so these will find genuine everywhere either you bought offline or online. Apacs have introduced a hologram system which not easy to remove from the racket shaft.

SS Cricket Equipment

It is no surprise that almost all cricket equipment are susceptible to piracy, but mainly fakeness issues are limited to cricket bats and kitbags. Mostly, the sellers try to fool people by pasting a popular brand sticker on any bat and then selling the bat as a genuine article. Moreover, some sellers offer low-quality kitbags made with cheap build material at the price of a high-quality product.

To overcome the above problems, a renowned name in the cricketing equipment world- SS, developed a QR code scan system for the cricket bats. You need to scan that QR code on SS Cricket bats through any scanner on your smartphone. After asking for your personal information, the information about the product will be displayed. 

SG Cricket Equipments

Like SS, SG has also developed an app to reduce the number of fake equipment going around. You need to download the app from Play Store if you are an Android User or Apple store if you are an iOS user. With the downloaded app only, you can scan the codes available on the SG cricket equipment.

However, things are not so straightforward with SG cricket bats and cricket balls as they have 2 QR codes. One of the codes is for the inventory, while the other one is for verifying the instrument. The latter code is actually hidden, and you will need to scratch it through your nails softly. 

But what people usually do is they scan the inventory code and start saying the instrument is fake, without giving a thorough reading to the manufacturer's guidelines. After scanning the wrong code, they start making complaints to the manufacturers that we have purchased it from your dealer. The code is not getting verified or starts crying on social media Fake-Fake, a juvenile behavior.

To be honest, most of these manufacturers don't have a dedicated cell to handle all these types of complaints. So when people complain about the issue, chances are some receptionist or someone else picks up the phone and give a heart attack to the person complaining by saying something like that's not our dealer or blah-blah. 

DSC Cricket Equipments

Like SS, DSC also introduced a QR code scanning system on the cricket bats; you need to scan and scratch the code and send on the mentioned phone number to verify the DSC cricket bat's genuineness. You must be aware of these basics, but many sellers/marketplaces hide these details from you because they sell fake goods. Then run some giant advertisements with superstars, and you will run for sale and end up using counterfeit goods.

Then you start blaming the online, but the truth is that your ignorance and less knowledge make this possible. In Sportsuncle, we make sure that such things never happen with anyone, either a first-time buyer or repeat buyer.

From where to Buy the Genuine Sports Goods?

There are distributors, dealers, retailers, resellers, and so on in the sports field, and anyone can give you a fake product. Still, more chances are if you purchased from any one of these, then you get a genuine product.

Buying goods from these sellers doesn't affect your purchase or warranty(if any) because none of them offer any extra benefits.. Still, chances are dealers/retailers/resellers give you the same product at a cheap price.

If you are not aware which offline shop or online store provides the genuine product, you must first believe in your gut feeling and secondly on the looks of the site or shop. If the website looks horrible or outdated, has lousy quality product pictures, doesn't have an App in the play store or apple store, how can you even think of buying from them? 

If any site not providing a COD at your location doesn't mean that's a fake site, its not the correct way to judge because COD includes lots of expenses and harmful for the economy and reduces those some sites disabled this feature. If any buyer not accepts the COD or cancels in between, thats a direct loss to the company or seller. And many of you have a tendency to order from 2-3 sites at the same time and keep the first one which arrives.

Always remember, if anyone likes to cheat, then that's possible in COD, too, so that's the wrong way to judge anyone and reflect the buyer's small thinking and buyers need to think a little broad.

Conclusion

The quality and quantity of sporting equipment have increased significantly over the past few years. We have more brands than ever. However, at the same time, the number of fake equipment is also an all-time high in the market. Hence, it is best to do the proper research before buying anything. Additionally, it is essential to know the process to check if the equipment is genuine or fake.

What's more, the verification process to check if the equipment is fake or real may look different for different brands, but it is usually the same process. And if you are aware of small things like mobile apps, and scratch codes, then you can verify your equipment on the spot.

If you have any doubts or more ideas on how to reduce/find the fake sports goods products then share with us below.

Stay tuned for more educational pieces about other sporting equipment.