From Lululemon to Birkenstock, duplicate styles lure holiday shoppers

investing.com:

By Katherine Masters

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Lauren Maginness is a fan of Lululemon (NASDAQ:LULU). But the 31-year-old product marketer in New York City is increasingly supplementing her activewear with less-pricey brand duplicates she picks up through e-commerce site Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN).

One of her favorites: CRZ Yoga's $32 high-waisted yoga pants, resembling Lululemon’s popular $98 Align (NASDAQ:ALGN) leggings. Maginness learned about CRZ from an influencer on short-video platform TikTok who describes herself as a former Lululemon employee.

As the holiday shopping season gets under way, top-sellers from Lululemon, Abercrombie & Fitch, Birkenstock (NYSE:BIRK) and Estee Lauder (NYSE:EL)'s Tom Ford (NYSE:F) perfume are competing for shoppers like Maginness and their growing love affair with TikTok-popularized «dupes» — sufficiently similar replicas of higher-priced products.

CRZ Yoga is doing brisk business, selling an average 88,633 pairs of the leggings a month and earning around $2.84 million in average monthly revenue, according to data from e-commerce analytics firm Jungle Scout. CRZ, which according to its website is owned by a Hong Kong trading company, did not respond to a request for comment.

Growing demand for lookalike products, coupled with a pullback in spending due to inflation, is cutting in to sales of some trendy, big-name products. “Dupes” have become so widely accepted, particularly among younger consumers, that Maginness said she would consider gifting a faux-Lululemon activewear set to a friend. “After all, you do have more room in the budget with the dupe,” she said.

Hashtag searches for dupes of major brands — including Skims underwear and Deckers' Ugg boots — have been viewed millions of times on