Buying perfume off ebay. How likely am I to be ripped off here?

[Crabcanon]

I'm totally in love with Creed Royal Oud. No way can I afford it though. 75ml is £210! There's a 75ml bottle of spray of it for sale on ebay uk for £85. The details list it as 'new other' as there is no box or lid and it has been sprayed once and is genuine.

Would you risk it?

[MightyMunki]

Personally no. £85 is still a lot of money for something if it turns out not to be genuine.

[ashley0710]

No I wouldn't personally
I bought 2 bottles of estee lauder from eBay as genuine
good seller feedback ect
They defo wasn't estee lauder!
Lesson learned here

[Crabcanon]

Thanks for that. I can't afford to write of £85 if it's a fake. I shall just keep spraying some on when I go into town. Until I win the lottery, then I'll get a bottle :)

[VintagePerfumista]

Ebay are very hot on fakes. If you got it and it was, you would get your money back.

I have never had a fake (and I buy a lot of perfume!) except for one which was actually listed as a fake but I gave it a go anyway, and it's fab.

I would be wary on ebay in these cases:
Lots of bottles of the same thing being sold
Seriously under-priced, on a BIN/new
From some countries- I wouldn't touch perfume from CHN/Hong Kong etc- my friend lives in China and has brought me fakes over before and you would seriously never know- but she is paying $10 not $150 for them.
Miniatures- very easy to buy up/collect empty bottles and fill them. I do buy miniatures but carefully.
Anything listed as vintage. I buy lots of this, but am very careful.

If your seller has the one bottle- and it is listed as opened- then I'd presume they just didn't like it and wanted it off their hands.

PS there's always Perfume Parlour dupes of Creed perfumes...

[Crabcanon]

vintage that's really helpful. Thanks so much for info. It says it's a full tester bottle, tested once. Not sure what that actually means tho. Where would someone get hold of/buy a tester and why would it be for sale?

[VintagePerfumista]

I've found the one you're looking at, and I'd say if it's genuine it's a tester. tester. (no lid- which indicates tester)

Odd collection of perfumes etc being sold. I'd swerve it I think. That looks genuine, but not sure the other perfumes on sale are.

There are sellers offering 10ml decants of Creed which work out a lot cheaper- about £15 for a good month's supply or so?

[SuperFlyHigh]

Personally, if I list perfumes for sale on EBay (have done one brand new sealed one and one slightly used rare one), I do my research as to what's sold before or listed before.

My brand new one had the store price on (fairly well known department store) and the rare one I saw a similar perfume but different scent had sold recently. I took photos of all of its packaging including label underneath it.

Not really seen tester bottles listed for sale but then I don't buy perfume much on EBay!

[VintagePerfumista]

Not sure tbh where they get them from- I've bought a couple of testers from ebay myself.

A few months ago, on the perfumista thread we spotted a guy in Lithuania who had samples of everything, all not to be resold/free with purchase stuff. Don't know if you can buy that sort of thing in bulk, or he'd been given it in airports, or maybe worked in a perfumery. AFAIK the people who bought his stuff were satisfied it was genuine.

[VintagePerfumista]

Super- yes, good idea- I am always messaging people to take a photo of the bottom of the box etc it helps with dating (barcodes/recycling/batch codes etc)

OP- there's a 5ml sample for £9.99- I'd probably give that a punt. It's UK based too- there are more 10ml ones but hefty postage because in the US. 5ml will last about a month if it's a strong perfume!

[Crabcanon]

Thanks again. Really useful advice. I think I''ll order the sample. It's incredibly strong smelling stuff so only a tiny bit needed if not to stun everyone within range.