Are Levi's from Amazon different from Levi's from Levi's?

(Denim head) Anecdata - buying Levis from Amazon (or any other store), pick up at least a couple of pairs in the same size. It&#x27;s likely different people&#x2F;factories making them, but often you&#x27;ll find variation in size&#x2F;denim even when the labelling in the same. One pair of 32&#x2F;32 might feel &#x27;off&#x27; and the next is the best pair you&#x27;ve ever owned. Completely agree with going &#x27;smaller&#x27; brand if you want consistency though (and that&#x27;s a whole different world).<p>But better tip - (if you&#x27;re not looking for &#x27;smart&#x27; denim) buy from eBay. Only buy pairs where everything has been measured properly (waist, inside leg, rise, etc) so you can get close to what you know you fits. You can find 20+ year old Levis for less than $20 - the denim is heavier, the quality is <i>good</i> and they have that perfect &#x27;broken in&#x27; feel that makes the jeans feel like your best friend. Plus you can afford to try a few pairs to find ones you love.

&gt; <i>[...] one pair ordered from Amazon, one pair sent by Levi’s for each style. [...] It seemed the tipster was half right. The tests confirmed a lot of variability between two pairs of the same jeans — you could buy the same style from Amazon and Levi’s and feel a difference. But it didn’t add up to gaps in quality; there was no indication that the Levi’s from Amazon were worse.</i><p>All this time, researchers have been wasting money on sample sizes larger than 1 before drawing conclusions.<p>Also, I find the word &quot;commingling&quot; nowhere in the article. It&#x27;s very relevant to the question of what product you&#x27;re receiving when you buy from Amazon.

I don&#x27;t know if Levis are, but I have absolutely ordered other branded items that are different on amazon compared to in a store, including entirely different and lower quality fabric on amazon.<p>It&#x27;s not at all surprising for anything to happen after co-mingled inventory, which should absolutely be illegal.<p>Walmart created a business practice where many black Friday deals were lower quality products produced explicitly for black Friday sales. So underhanded deceptive business practice in large retailers isn&#x27;t anything new.<p>Without a regulatory authority we can expect companies to act in decreasingly bad faith, because who will provide consequences, the other definitely not colluding competitor?

People, read the article. The conclusion is not as &quot;terrible&quot; as what you may infer from the title (we all think the worst I guess).<p>Basically, it says Levi&#x27;s jeans are manufactured in several different countries, so that most likely accounts for the variations. And that some of the jeans she bought from Amazon were actually better than non-amazon.<p>Still. I prefer buying from the Amazon competition in my country. Amazon regularly sends me wrong items.

I&#x27;ve noticed that &quot;outlet stores&quot; (stores with names like &quot;&lt;Brand X&gt; Outlet&quot; that you can find at outlet malls, such as the San Francisco Premium Outlets) sometimes sell SKUs that aren&#x27;t sold by the company normally. Likewise, on Black Friday, you might find inventory in stores that isn&#x27;t there normally. If an item isn&#x27;t normally in stock, it&#x27;s retail price is only hypothetical, and they can get away with saying that it&#x27;s &quot;60% off&quot; or whatever.

I don&#x27;t know about Amazon, but years ago I read an article about Walmart that made the case that products sold there <i>from the same brand</i> tend to be worse than those available elsewhere. Levi&#x27;s jeans were an example.<p>For Walmart, they have scale <i>and</i> a monomaniacal focus on lowest cost. Each time a contract with a vendor is renegotiated, Walmart demands a lower cost, and they&#x27;re big enough they get it. The predicable effect is the vendors skimp and cut costs on what they send to Walmart because they&#x27;re under so much pressure, <i>and Walmart doesn&#x27;t care</i> as long as they get a lower price. That can mean vendors doing stuff like binning by quality, and sending the worst stuff to Walmart; using a special grocery-store shrink ray for Walmart, special Walmart-specific cost-reduced designs; etc.

Like the majority of &quot;Don&#x27;t buy from Amazon&quot; articles I&#x27;ve read, this one doesn&#x27;t seem to make any mention (unless I missed it!) of if these Levis were shipped by _and_ sold by Amazon.<p>There&#x27;s no doubt Amazon has a problem with fake or imposter products. But every post I seem to read about this is people who unwittingly by from a marketplace seller.<p>Of course Amazon should do better to regulate those marketplace sellers, but it seems similar to me to someone buying a Rolex from a street peddler in Times Square and being shocked it isn&#x27;t the real thing.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot make two pairs of jeans that are identical.<p>Same pattern, same denim, same person making them (me), they don&#x27;t fit&#x2F;feel the same.<p>Consistent results when using fabric is hard. Also keep in mind that good denim is practically sheet metal in comparison to most fabrics, so on one hand easier to get consistent results, but on the other hand, even small differences are more noticeable than something lighter or (god forbid) stretchy.<p>You cannot just engineer your way out of some of the challenges inherit in garment construction (trust me, Ive tried).

Not Amazon but I bought some Levi&#x27;s trousers from their brand outlet in Woodbury Commons and the quality is so much better than the stuff I usually see outside US (not sure why&#x2F;how because all of it probably gets made somewhere in Asia). Also, there are multiple lengths available for a given waist size so you retain the original hem stitching compared to the cut-and-stitch common in non-US locations.

i have had issues with clothing I think is inferior quality and likely counterfeit from amazon -- including when buying from what looks like &quot;official&quot; brand stores on Amazon. One example is Gold Toe socks.<p>I have wondered if even when buying from what looks like an official amazon brand store, you can still get product from multiple suppliers&#x2F;locations, including some that have counterfeits? Anyone know if this is feasible?<p>It doesn&#x27;t seem likely to me that (eg) Levi&#x27;s or Gold Toe are doing this on purpose. It would also mean it would be hard to &#x27;test&#x27; because you might get different things on different orders, it&#x27;s not that the entire amazon supply is counterfeit, but that counterfeit stuff is in there somehow.

Archive link: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;R9T6i" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;R9T6i</a><p>I doubt the jeans the author is buying from Amazon are genuine product, maybe just really good knockoffs.

The bigger question for me is if Levi’s from outlet stores is worse quality - I’ve heard that originally outlets sold surplus, but when they realized it was a good business bringing lots of customers they started making inferior products specifically for the outlet market. Maybe it’s not true, but I had 3 pairs fall apart and it’s made me stop buying Levi’s. I’m interested in ways brands can damage their reputation for short term gains, but never knew if this one is true or a rumor

From what I understand this is a Levis thing. They supposedly use lots of different factories where the product has a surprisingly wide range. For example, one size from one factory will be noticeably bigger or smaller than other. Stretchiness seems to vary also as well as tightness.<p>I had honestly thought this was my imagination of years of using them, but ran into more than one person shopping for jeans that randomly brought this up. I guess Levis super fans can spot each other.

Lots of companies DO make different skus for different retailers. I don&#x27;t know if Levis is doing this with amazon.<p>A friend of mine worked in construction and said paint from a retail store was thicker and better, compared to the &quot;same paint&quot; from home depot. I think it might be the same paint, with a special &quot;home depot&quot; sku for paint that is more watery or somehow made at lower cost.<p>Here&#x27;s an (archived) article talking about name brands and walmart:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20050101092353&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fastcompany.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;77&#x2F;walmart.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20050101092353&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fastco...</a><p>Personally, I have found amazon with name brands to be hit or miss. It seems you might get a name brand through an intermediary (like a retail store) when the name brand won&#x27;t sell through amazon itself.

Wrangler 13MWZ for the win... Mexican co-workers turned me on to them and I have never looked back. Heavy duty, well made, and a good value. Keep in mind they are cowboy cut, 14.5 oz., with no stretch.

I wore Levis 501s and 505s for decades then gave up about 15 years ago due to their severe drop in denim quality and jump in price at my main source (Kohl&#x27;s). I find they wear out in less than a year now.<p>I switched to All American Clothing AA101s and Duluth Trading Ballroom relaxed denim (not flex). The Duluths are durable, look like denim should, fit consistently, are triple stitched and gusseted, and sell for only $60. And gladly, neither of these jeans contains any elastic.

I don&#x27;t know about Levis, but I can attest that Ernie Ball guitar strings from Amazon are different &#x2F; crappy. It is almost like Amazon is selling knock-offs or something.

This is WalMart all over again.<p>Since WalMart has so much leverage in negotiations, they get to essentially name their price for goods.<p>Which causes manufacturers to make special WalMart versions of their items.

I actually order a bunch of Levi&#x27;s to try on from Amazon last year. I wasn&#x27;t expecting much out of Levi&#x27;s since there denim has felt very thin at every physical store I have went to, but the sale price was good. Every pair I recieved had pretty good quality denim, like the denim they sold from 20 years ago. They all had pretty close fits to each other, so I kept all of them. I guess I will pay more attention to country of origin in the future.

I&#x27;ve found that Wrangler and Lee have less quality variance and are of better quality when compared with similarly prices Levi&#x27;s.

Manufacturers can have different graders of products for full retail, different price point department stores (Nordstroms vs winners vs ..), amazon, Costco, etc.<p>Imagine meeting price points, within a range of supplied products.<p>I&#x27;m sure denim experts could expand on why some jeans still last and others wear out.

I noticed that in the early 00s, GAP would produce a product, then use cheaper materials and sell it through Old Navy, and use more expensive material the sell it through Banana Republic. Same style, different materials.

I don&#x27;t buy Levis anymore anywhere the quality of their threads and fabrics took a nosedive compared to what I was used to late 90s and early 2000s.

<i>A counterfeit jeans ring operating out of my car hole!</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;hT89K-6iJF4?t=60" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;hT89K-6iJF4?t=60</a>

I only buy my Levis used and preferably pre the 90ies. Lots in good condition and they will literally last for my entire life

Another example, imported food we get in the Eastern Europe is much worse than they get in the Western Europe.

Does something similar happen with shoes, like at Zappos?