“It’s not necessarily because the consumer doesn’t love the brand, sometimes it just makes more financial sense to buy the dupes,” said Sara Walker, a Los Angeles-based influencer and fashion industry expert.
Unlike illegal counterfeit goods, which tend to carry an unauthorized trademark or logo of a patented brand, these dupes are cheaper, typically legal alternatives to premium or luxury consumer products, and in some cases preferred to their pricier counterpart.
“It’s not a direct knockoff, it’s kind of revising something that’s very chic from a designer world into a more accessible product,” Walker said.
Brand imitators have found “this narrow little aisle to operate in that satisfies consumer demand” and keeps them safe from actual legal action from the companies they are duping, according to Ellyn Briggs, brands analyst at Morning Consult.
Even when consumers can get the real thing, nearly 33% of adults intentionally purchased a dupe of a premium product at some point, according to a report by Morning Consult. The business intelligence company polled more than 2,000 adults in early October.
TikTok is ‘ground zero’ for dupes
“The online culture of dupe shopping, accelerated by TikTok … has flipped the script,” according to Briggs.
“TikTok is ground zero for where all this is happening,” she said.
TikTok Shop, especially, “has become the storefront for dupes,” Briggs said.
Younger generations use TikTok Shop, which launched as an e-commerce platform within the short-form video app in September of last year, more than older cohorts: About 40% of Gen Zers between the ages of 18 and 26 have made at least one purchase. Similarly, 37% of millennials have bought at least one item on TikTok Shop, according to a Morning Consult poll conducted in December.
But designer look-alikes can also be found at retail giants such as Amazon and Walmart, as well as Costco, home to the viral floor mirror dupe of an Anthropologie mirror.
“Dupes are everywhere now. That’s just how it is,” Walker said.
Dupes are a sign of the times
Often, shopping for dupes is a way to participate in a trend without breaking the bank — especially at a time when styles cycle through faster and faster, according to Walker, who said she has tried dupe leggings, dupe perfume and dupe sunglasses.
“It’s not always financially responsible to buy the original,” Walker said.
Briggs said that in some ways, dupe shopping is a form of bargain hunting, which has been “repackaged” into a new subset of online shopping — just as other viral trends on TikTok are repackaging longstanding or pre-existing behaviors.
The quality may vary, however. In other words, you get what you pay for.
“Trends come and go and if you are constantly updating your wardrobe based on the trends, that can get expensive,” Carolyn McClanahan, a certified financial planner and founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida, told CNBC earlier this year, speaking about the “mob wife” fashion trend.
As consumers continue to stretch to cover rising rent, increased food prices and higher borrowing costs, there is less disposable income left for discretionary spending, according to Brett House, economics professor at Columbia Business School. That has helped open the door to dupes.
“Sustaining recent consumption patterns is making people potentially susceptible to the promise that a dupe offers,” House said.
The “sustained interest” for dupes also reflects how increasingly cautious consumers are about making big purchases in this economy, said Briggs.
In the end, price is “the No. 1 factor for purchase decisions,” she added, whether a shopper is cash-strapped or not.
Millions of Social Security beneficiaries will benefit from the 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment for 2025, set to take effect in January.
With that increase, the maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at full retirement age will jump to $4,018 per month, up from $3,822 per month this year, according to the Social Security Administration.
But while those maximum benefits will see a $196 monthly increase, retirement benefits will go up by about $50 per month on average, according to the agency.
The average monthly benefit for retired workers is expected to increase to $1,976 per month in 2025, a $49 increase from $1,927 per month as of this year, according to the Social Security Administration.
Who gets maximum Social Security benefits?
The highest Social Security benefits generally go to people who have had maximum earnings their entire working career, according to Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
That cohort generally includes a “very small number of people,” he said.
Because Social Security retirement benefits are calculated based on the highest 35 years of earnings, workers need to consistently have wages up to that threshold to earn the maximum retirement benefit.
“Very few people start out at age 21 earning the maximum level,” Van de Water said.
Workers contribute payroll taxes to Social Security up to what is known as a taxable maximum.
In 2024, a 6.2% tax paid by both workers and employers (or 12.4% for self-employed workers) applies to up to $168,600 in earnings. In 2025, that will go up to $176,100.
Notably, that limit applies only to wages that are subject to federal payroll taxes. If a wealthy person has other sources of income, for example from investments that do not require payroll tax contributions, that will not affect the size of their Social Security benefits, said Jim Blair, vice president of Premier Social Security Consulting and a former Social Security administrator.
How can you increase your Social Security benefits?
There are beneficiaries who are receiving Social Security checks amounting to more than $4,000 per month, and they usually have waited to claim until age 70, according to Blair.
“Technically, waiting until 70 gets you the most amount of Social Security benefits,” Blair said.
By claiming retirement benefits at the earliest possible age — 62 — beneficiaries receive permanently reduced benefits.
At full retirement age — either 66 or 67, depending on date of birth — retirees receive 100% of the benefits they’ve earned.
And by waiting from full retirement age up to age 70, beneficiaries stand to receive an 8% benefit boost per year.
By waiting from age 62 to 70, beneficiaries may see a 77% increase in benefits.
However, because everyone’s circumstances are different, it may not always make sense to wait until the highest possible claiming age, Blair said.
Prospective beneficiaries need to evaluate not only how their claiming decision will impact them individually, but also their spouse and any dependents, he said.
“You have to look at your own situation before you apply,” Blair said.
Also, it is important for prospective beneficiaries to create an online My Social Security account to review their benefit statements, he said. That will show estimates of future benefits and the earnings history the agency has on record.
Because that earnings information is used to calculate benefits, individuals should double check that information to make sure it is correct, Blair said. If it is not, they should contact the Social Security Administration to fix it.
Before the Secure Act of 2019, heirs could “stretch” inherited IRA withdrawals over their lifetime, which helped reduce yearly taxes.
But certain accounts inherited since 2020 are subject to the “10-year rule,” meaning IRAs must be empty by the 10th year following the original account owner’s death. The rule applies to heirs who are not a spouse, minor child, disabled, chronically ill or certain trusts.
Since then, there’s been confusion about whether the heirs subject to the 10-year rule needed to take yearly withdrawals, known as required minimum distributions, or RMDs.
“You have a multi-dimensional matrix of outcomes for different inherited IRAs,” Dickson said. It’s important to understand how these rules impact your distribution strategy, he added.
After years of waived penalties, the IRS in July confirmed certain heirs will need to begin yearly RMDs from inherited accounts starting in 2025. The rule applies if the original account owner had reached their RMD age before death.
If you miss yearly RMDs or don’t take enough, there is a 25% penalty on the amount you should have withdrawn. But it’s possible to reduce the penalty to 10% if the RMD is “timely corrected” within two years, according to the IRS.
Consider ‘strategic distributions’
If you’re subject to the 10-year rule for your inherited IRA, spreading withdrawals evenly over the 10 years reduces taxes for most heirs, according to research released by Vanguard in June.
However, you should also consider “strategic distributions,” according to certified financial planner Judson Meinhart, director of financial planning at Modera Wealth Management in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
“It starts by understanding what your current marginal tax rate is” and how that could change over the 10-year window, he said.
For example, it could make sense to make withdrawals during lower-tax years, such as years of unemployment or early retirement before receiving Social Security payments.
However, boosting adjusted gross income can trigger other consequences, such as eligibility for college financial aid, income-driven student loan payments or Medicare Part B and Part D premiums for retirees.
As a result, many are using more of their available credit and now, nearly 2 in 5 credit cardholders — 37% — have maxed out or come close to maxing out a credit card since the Federal Reserve began raising rates in March 2022, according to a new report by Bankrate.
Most borrowers who are over extended blame rising prices and a higher cost of living, Bankrate found.
Other reasons cardholders blame for maxing out a credit card or coming close include a job or income loss, an emergency expense, medical costs and too much discretionary spending.
“With limited options to absorb those higher costs, many low-income Americans have had no choice but to take on debt to afford costlier essentials — at a time when credit card rates are near record highs,” Sarah Foster, an analyst at Bankrate, said in a statement.
As prices crept higher, so did credit card balances.
The average balance per consumer now stands at $6,329, up 4.8% year over year, according to the latest credit industryinsights report from TransUnion.
Carrying a higher balance has a direct impact on your utilization rate, the ratio of debt to total credit, and is one of the factors that can influence your credit score. Higher credit score borrowers typically have both higher limits and lower utilization rates.
As of August, the aggregate credit card utilization rate was more than 21%, according to Bankrate’s analysis of Equifax data.
Still, “if you have five credit cards [with utilization rates around] 20%, you have a lot of debt out there,” said Howard Dvorkin, a certified public accountant and the chairman of Debt.com. “People are living a life that they can’t afford right now, and they are putting the balance on credit cards.”
Generation X at risk
More than any other generation, Gen Xers in their 40s and 50s are most likely to have maxed out a credit card or come close in the past two and a half years, according to Bankrate’s report.
Of Gen Xers, 27% have maxed out their credit cards compared to 23% of millennials and 17% of Baby Boomers. Young adults in Gen Z are the least likely to have maxed out a card, according to the survey, which polled more than 3,500 adults, including 3,015 who are credit cardholders and 1,104 who have either maxed out their credit cards or come close.
Gen X, the so-called “sandwich generation,” must contend with supporting the generations ahead of them and their children at a time when the costs of higher education and health care have never been higher, studies also show.
Potential problems ahead
Cardholders who have maxed out or come close to maxing out their credit cards are also more likely to become delinquent.
Credit card delinquency rates are already higher across the board, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and TransUnion both reported.
“Consumers have been measured in taking on additional revolving debt despite the inflationary environment over the past few years, although there has been an uptick in delinquencies in recent months,” said Tom McGee, CEO of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
A debt is considered delinquent when a borrower misses a full billing cycle without making a payment, or what’s considered 30 days past due. That can damage your credit score and impact the interest rate you’ll pay for credit cards, car loans and mortgages — or whether you’ll get a loan at all.
Some of the best ways to improve your credit standing come down to paying your bills on time every month, and in full, if possible, Dvorkin said. “Understand that if you don’t, then whatever you buy, over time, will end up costing you double.”