The UGG boot craze is still running its course in the UK and if like me you are lover of the famous boots you will be aware of the massive shortage of them in shops currently! So you can understand my utter astonishment and shock when  several  customers have recently asked why our UGG®Australia boots are so expensive when you can buy them on the internet for as little as £80!!! I decided it might be a good idea to investigate (if for no other reason than, if it was true I wanted in on the deal) because I just couldn’t see how it could possibly be true. However, there they were on my search engine web page, site after site advertising UGG boots for half price or £100 with free postage and packaging. On further investigation onto the pages the boots appeared to be very real indeed, printed with UGG Australia and available for instant despatch in any colour style or size!
 So why then, I thought, browsing the official UGG®Australia website, did they only have the ladies  patchwork size 8 left in the classic tall boot if it was their boot that the other sites were selling? Surely they would have priority on the selling rights? When official agents such as ourselves are crying out for more stock ,why would the company not send out more and only distribute them to websites? It just didn’t add up, so I did a little more research and found out that UGG®Australia only owns the registered trademark in the United States and the European Union, and that the words UGG UG UGH and UGGH are just a generic term used for a boot made from sheepskin and lined with wool. Because UGG®Australia don’t own the rights to the name worldwide and more importantly in Australia, it means that other companies can make knock off boots and get away with selling them under the name UGG Australia! However it is UGG®Australia that made the boots popular with stars such as Sienna Miller, Kate Hudson and Pamela Anderson all wearing them because of there famed comfort and their great fashion statement. A lot of these other sites may well be selling something that looks like the real thing but often is not. This was proven to me this week when a lady came into the store with what at first appeared to be a pair of UGG®Australia boots she had bought online. She had purchased them ,believing they were genuine, from a site with positive feedback .However on closer inspection it was almost instantly obvious to us both that they were in fact fakes. There were several things wrong with the boots but the most important was that they were not lined with the wool and viscose foam lining that the UGG®Australia boots are lined with, and it is this and the fact that they are made from sheepskin which give them their thermostatic benefits, thus making the feet warm and cosy in winter months but cool in summer months. Other features on the fake boots that were not true to the UGG®Australia boots that we sell in the store were as follows:

• The UGG name print on the bottom of the boot did not have the ® registered trademark symbol next to the word UGG
• The heel was not enforced as it should be
• The boot lining was soft and silky where it should be thick and fibrous and
• The stitching on the boot was different

UGG®Australia boots are recommended for retail at £170.00 for a tall boot so please beware of sites offering them at lower prices. As with most things if it sounds too good to be true it probably is! I’m not saying that there are not any sites out there offering the real thing for a bargain price, however this is very rare and the horror stories keep coming. To anyone who is worried that they may have bought copies please feel free to come into the store and we’ll compare them with the Real McCoy. These boots are a real investment when made with UGG®Australia materials and their comfy factor second to none; however £80 to £100 is too much to pay for copies without the benefits.

Georgina Mee