Avcioglu (you can find her on Instagram) and Mr. Many items on these stores can take a month to be delivered.ĭigging into the details of CHIC NYC RUNWAY makes for some amusing discoveries.Ĭhic NYC and Global Influencer Agency appear to be the work of Brittany C.

Anything that can't be drop-shipped can be bought online from a cheap vendor and then sold on with a considerable markup. It certainly seems to be working: according to the report kindly provided to me by been tagged in 1,071 in the last 90 days.Įven better, the products on sale are massively marked up, and in theory, there's no need to hold any stock. In essence, the customers are not only buying the products but also then advertising them, posting their purchases to their own Instagram accounts for their friends to see and gaming the Instagram algorithm by tagging. There are hundreds of thousands of Instagram users who want to be the next prominent fashion blogger, and to those who are too excited or naive to look beyond the surface and examine the details, this looks like a shortcut.īecause Instagram has done very little to counter the purchase of fake followers, creating an account and giving it the appearance of reach and authenticity is alarmingly simple.Īs a business model, it seems straightforward. This scheme operates by preying on people's desire for Instagram fame and functions as a slightly more complicated 'pay-to-be-featured' style account. You could argue that people are being teased rather than lied to, and no one is handing over money for something that they don't receive (although the Better Business Bureau reviews may suggest otherwise).

This brand ambassador racket is misleading, but calling it deceptive is not entirely accurate. Despite the clumsy email, the psychological nudges were subtle: I'd need to place my order before 11 pm that night (no time zone mentioned) and then post a photo of me wearing my new clothes tagging and The time restriction was to encourage me not to spend too long researching Chic NYC and the tease of tagging New York Fashion Week and Woman's Look (a huge fashion freebooting account with 1.3 million followers) was to make me assume that these other accounts might feature my photo. Not only would I gain 500 followers a month, but I'd also be invited to events and runway shows and receive a 75% discount on exclusive clothing that's been featured at New York Fashion Week alongside Tommy Hilfiger, Michael Kors, and Giogio (yes, 'Giogio') Armani.Īl I needed to do was choose a T-shirt and use the 75% discount code I'd just received. Signing up would make me one of Global Influencer Agency's 'professionally managed' influencers, part of a team of 15,000 content creators who want to help me on my influencer journey and promote me to the 80,000 followers via their Instagram account. Jody - who later became April - didn't seem to know whether she was writing to me from CHIC NYC RUNWAY or Global Influencer Agency, shifting within the space of a sentence. Not to be confused with any unofficial versions. The 'official' Instagram of CHIC NYC RUNWAY ™.

Runway scout discount code instagram