UGG Boots Online Shopping Guide10 ways to spot websites you should avoidby Jay Van Tussenbrook 
The Problem Shopping for UGG boots online these days can be a pretty confusing task. There are UGG boots from UGG Australia, Australian Ugh boots, Ug boots “made in Australia”, off-brands, knock-offs, and “fake” Uggs, just to get started. Worse than the confusion over brand or manufacturing differences though is trying to sort through the online landscape to find someplace to purchase your UGGs without them sending you fakes or even just ripping off your credit card information. Every year people are taken in by websites claiming to sell “real UGG boots made in Australia” or something similar. Don’t believe me? Just do a search in Google for “UGG complaint” and look at what’s out there. Everything from simple misunderstandings about a brand to people who make their orders and never get their products, only to find the offending websites gone after the season never to be heard from again. Shopping online is hard enough without throwing in the temptations of easy money from something as popular as UGGs. The fact that most UGG related fraud takes place around the holidays, taking advantage of peoples gift-giving good will, only makes it worse. How can you tell if a site is trustworthy or not? In the next few pages we are going to show you exactly that. For the sake of argument let’s make the assumption that you are looking for “authentic UGG boots from UGG Australia”. They are the brand that made the name famous. For about a decade whenever someone mentioned UGG boots they were really talking about the UGG Australia brand. Even today one brand stands out above all the rest in terms of quality, fashion, and comfort, and that brand is UGG Australia. Starting there then, lets go through the steps a typical consumer would take to try and buy a pair of UGGs online. The average person most likely starts by firing up their computer and heading on over to what is probably the most visited website on the planet: Google. Since we don’t all know how to use the more advanced search features let’s assume that we simply enter the word “uggs” into the search bar. The results you get might be a little shocking, so before we get too far lets simply take a general look at what Google gives us. I have color-coded the image below to further illustrate what we are looking at.
First off let’s address all the red on the page. Red is usually not a good thing and in this case that holds true. All the results circled in red lead to sites I would consider suspicious at best and completely fraudulent at worst. You should note that all the red results on the pictured page are actually paid ads with very few of them ever showing up in the first page of the “organic” (non-paid) results. This doesn’t mean they won’t though. Occasionally this kind of site will show up, so be sure to check the 10 things below to make sure a site is good. Next let’s look at the violet entries. All the violet entries are websites that lead (directly or indirectly) to Amazon.com. Amazon.com can be a great shopping resource as long as you know what you are getting. The fact that there are so many different sellers of different brands of Ugg boots on Amazon.com makes choosing the right product a challenge even there. It’s a challenge that will be even more difficult when buying UGGs since UGG Australia has recently asked all it’s authorized retailers to no longer sell on Amazon.com. This means that you will be taking your chances buying UGGs on Amazon.com. There is a good chance in the future that you will not even be able to find “real” UGG Australia Uggs at all, and even if you do, you will be buying them from a dealer that is not authorized by UGG Australia. Buyer beware. The results circled in yellow are off-brand websites. They sell Emu, Whooga, Roxy, or some other brand of boot that is not an authentic UGG Australia Ugg boot. They are probably trustworthy sites, just not what we are looking for. We want “real UGGs”. You will notice there are three blue circles on the first page. One is an ad near the top, accompanied by two listings in the non-paid results. These links all lead (directly or indirectly) to Zappos. In all fairness you should know that Zappos is indeed one of UGG Australia’s authorized dealers, and are known to be a trustworthy business. They do however usually have slightly higher prices on UGG boots than most other online retailers. Finally we can get to the few green entries on the first page of Google. As with red, green is universally known to stand for something good, and in this case it does. The few green results are split into 2 groups. The first two entries from the top down (1 an ad, and 1 a non-paid “organic” listing) both lead to the official UGG Australia site, obviously one of the most trustworthy places to buy UGGs online. They don’t have free shipping though, so you can usually find a better deal at one of their “authorized independent online dealers”, which is what the other green entries denote. Now that we have “painted a picture” of the online UGG boots landscape it is a little easier to see what kind of problem we are dealing with, and yes there is a problem. Of the 21 different entries on the page there are only 6 authorized dealers represented counting the official UGG Australia website. If you were just randomly clicking on things you would have about a 38% chance of landing on an authorized dealers site (since Zappos and UGG Australia have more than one listing). That’s not so good. What’s worse is the number of “untrustworthy” sites represented. Once again if you were just clicking randomly on things you would have about a 38% chance of landing on a site that raises red flags. With the other 24% of sites being off-brand or not what we are looking for that means we have an equal chance of clicking a “good” site or a “bad” site. Don’t worry though, we are here to help. Go ahead and flip that coin, then look for the signs below to tell you if you should buy there or not. 10 things to help you avoid getting ripped-off when buying UGGs online. 1. Are they on the list? What list you ask? UGG Australia keeps a list of all their authorized online retailers on the official UGG Australia site. If you can’t find the name of the website you are at on the official list then there is a good chance the UGGs they sell are either some other brand of Uggs, or outright counterfeits. Ignore the list at your own peril. Fleecefootwear.com is represented on that list and has been an authorized online retailer since we started in 2004. 2. Is the word “UGG” in the domain name? UGG Australia has required that all authorized online retailers NOT have the word UGG in their domain name. Go ahead and look through the list again. Notice none of the domain names includes the word UGG in any way. If you are buying from a site that includes the word UGG in the domain name you are taking your chances. 3. Are the UGGs “made in Australia”? Sad but true, “real” UGGs from UGG Australia are now actually made in China. Only the Ultra collection is still made in New Zealand, but NONE of UGG Australia’s products are manufactured or shipped from Australia. If you are buying Uggs that are made in Australia you can be 100% certain they are NOT UGG Australia brand Uggs. 4. Is the word UGG spelled right in the Google entry? Look out for Ughs, Ugs, or any other spelling of the word Ugg. Ugg boots are marketed under several different spellings of the word, but UGG Australia Uggs will ALWAYS be represented using the “UGG” spelling. Also be wary of clicking on ads that seem to spell the word correctly but have weird spaces in them. Who knows why they do it, but there must be a reason. Almost every time you find something like this it will lead to a site that raises several other red flags, so look out for sites selling “U GG boots”, “U G G s”, or “UG Gs” they are out there. 5. Is the price too good to be true? As we all know, things that seem too good to be true usually are. In this case it is common to see advertising for sales and prices that are unbelievably good. UGG Australia keeps very close tabs on their pricing. Authorized online retailers seldom have prices that vary more than a few dollars. Current styles will almost never be on sale anywhere. Maybe old colors and styles that are no longer made by UGG Australia can be found at significant price reductions, but if you are buying a Classic Tall Chestnut boot and the advertised price is more than say $7 cheaper than on the official UGG Australia website chances are that they are selling fakes. 6. Does the site have a limited selection? If you notice a lack of variety in the websites selection there is a good chance that you are looking at a site that sells counterfeit UGGs. Counterfeiting well enough that it will fool people is a very costly endeavor. Counterfeiters have to get the designs as exact as possible and then set up manufacturing, distribution, and selling avenues to make sure their investments pay off. They don’t have the resources to counterfeit the entire line of products, so they concentrate on the most popular styles. Most of them couldn’t counterfeit the new styles anyway since they have no connection to UGG Australia and therefore don’t even know what the new styles will look like. If you notice that the website you are on only offers Classic Short, Classic tall, and Classic Cardy then there is a good chance you are looking at a site that sells fakes. 7. Do the security logos work right? We should all recognize by now the importance of making sure that the sites we use are actually secure and legitimate sites. This is probably one of THE MOST IMPORTANT things to check not just for UGG, but whenever buying anything online, period. Unfortunately it is also one of the most overlooked things by consumers since they don’t quite understand the technology, or know how to check it. Con artists and fraudsters also understand this and will paste up official looking logos and security seals all over their websites that are really nothing but pretty looking graphics. So how do you tell if a security seal or logo is real or not? Well the first step is just to check them out with your mouse cursor. Try hovering your pointer over the graphic. Does it say anything? A legitimate seal or logo will usually have some kind of text message that appears when you hover over it. If for some reason there is no text that raises an immediate question about the legitimacy of the site. Even if the text does appear it still doesn’t mean that the seal or logo is real. To check the legitimacy of a logo or seal try clicking on the image itself. A legitimate security service will take you from the logo to an information page about the site you are on. You can see what they should look like by clicking on one of our logos (either BBB or Macafee in the upper left, or our cornertrust logo in the bottom right). It should list the name of the site as well as whatever services or certifications are being provided. If you can’t click on the image, or it goes to a page without any information on the website you are visiting consider yourself on RED ALERT! If the web page is already lying to you about it’s security who knows what else it is lying to you about. These are the kind of sites that are looking for more than a few dollars worth of fake boot sales. They want to steal your credit card numbers and personal information. This goes without saying, but always be sure to look for the “golden lock” in your web browser when you go to any page that has you entering personal information or credit card numbers.
It appears (in most browsers) in the address bar to verify that the address you are visiting is in fact a secure address. This means that any data you supply on that page will be encrypted to prevent any outside forces from “listening in” and stealing your personal information. You should also see that the address in your address bar begins with “https://” instead of “http://”. The additional “s” in “https://” stands for “secure” and shows that the page is using secure internet protocols instead of the usual ones. Sending information over the Internet from a page that has neither the “https://” or the golden padlock is asking for trouble. 8. Can you pay only through PayPal? Not having their own shopping cart is a sign that a website is being run on the cheap. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but, once again, be careful of the security signals. A common scam online is to go “phishing” for peoples PayPal account information by serving up fake PayPal sign-in screens. You enter your username and password on a page that looks exactly like the “real” PayPal site, and maybe you even get some pages after words that make it look like you have completed your transaction, but in reality you have just given the owners of the website access to your PayPal account. How can you tell? Look at the address in your browser. Are you on “https://www.paypal.com”? and is there a golden padlock? Then you are probably OK. Just be careful when checking the domain name. Fraudsters can be pretty tricky and we have seen things like “https://www.paypal.fishydomain.com”. Bottom line, if you intend to make an online purchase through PayPal BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT YOU ARE ON PAYPALS ACTUAL SITE BEFORE YOU ENTER YOUR INFORMATION! 9. Does the site offer “Free shipping anywhere in the world”? With the rising cost of fuel the cost of shipping has also been on the rise. Not enough to keep you from finding legitimate deals online that include free shipping, but enough to make Zappos quit offering free next day delivery, and surely enough that offering free shipping worldwide should be next to impossible for any legitimate business that actually wants to make money. Most of these businesses claim to be sending you your Uggs “direct from the factory”. That is a warning sign as well. UGG Australia does sell on their own site, but even those are not “factory direct”. If your order is supposed to be shipped from Australia or China chances are you will be receiving “fake” or off-brand UGGs, if you receive any at all. 10. Is the website you buy your UGGs from FleeceFootwear.com? If so you made a great choice. Here at FleeceFootwear.com you are assured to get the real UGG Australia brand UGG boots, always with free shipping within the Continental US and a safe secure checkout system that insures your private information stays private. You can find our name clearly on the UGG Australia authorized online retailers list. Our site is scanned and certified safe from hackers by Mcafee Secure, and our SSL encryption is provided by C.O.M.O.D.O., a trusted provider of SSL certification. They provide services to such industry giants as Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Sony, NASA, and the United States Post Office. We are also a part of the Better Business Bureau online reliability program, have a large selection, fair prices, and great customer service. You can be 100% certain FleeceFootwear.com is a legitimate, safe and secure place to buy your UGGs online. What to do if you have already been ripped off. Well, it depends on how bad it is. Just getting a fake pair of UGGs is not too bad compared to what could have happened. Unfortunately there are no “UGG Police” to report the fakes to. If you were directed to the site through a Google ad you can report them to Google by going here: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/request.py and using the “Click here to chat with an AdWords specialist!” option. Selling counterfeit merchandise violates Googles advertising terms and the offending ad should be removed once Google investigates the claim. You could also report your fakes to UGG Australia through their website http://www.uggaustralia.com/customerService/contactUS.aspx. UGG Australia has been known to aggressively prosecute counterfeiters of their products. You can also report them through a few different official channels. Check out http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Internet_Fraud.shtml. You will find a great list of resources for reporting Internet fraud, including http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx, the internet crime complaint center, and http://www.econsumer.gov/english/index.html, econsumer.gov, for reporting fraudulent sites that are not in the United States. Of course you can always try returning them, but don’t expect a good response. Chances are you are better off just keeping them and considering it a learning experience. If you believe your credit card numbers or personal information has been stolen then by all means start by contacting your credit card company or the bank that issued the card you used when you made your purchase and hope you have good online purchase protection. Then try the government sites above for more help. We hope this has helped give you some idea of how to protect yourself when buying UGGs online. We hate to see anyone get ripped off, especially in difficult financial times, or during the holiday season. It just goes to show how great people really think UGG boots are. To take such an amazing product and copy it to such an exacting degree and go through all the trouble of making fake websites, promoting and advertising them, and to actually be effective with it says a lot about the product itself. Yes, they really are that nice. UGG Australia is more than just a name, more than just a fad. The UGG Australia name carries with it a commitment to the finest materials, fashion-forward designs, and trustworthy retailers. Trust FleeceFootwear.com to always bring you these great boots, slippers and other footwear from UGG Australia with safe, secure shopping, free shipping, and great customer service. Remember UGG Australia Uggs are the only “real” UGGS!
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