I would say none of those stores are reliable however they all sell some BIFL products.

Online stores are a better option as they don't have third party sellers. They aren't a marketplace like Amazon. Think of Amazon as a mix of a good mall and those crappyones with the small booths where people are selling fake oakleys all mixed together. Ordering from Walmart means you' might be getting the lower quality Walmart only SKU but it will probably be genuine. Probably because sometimes legitimate dealers get scammed too. REI had a batch of fake Benchmades they were selling in their physical stores

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I see. That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the tip

Yeah, I think it's really difficult to know which third party sellers are reliable. Thank you very much!

I see... This makes sense. Thanks a lot for sharing your opinion!

Walmart.com allows third party sellers. Buy direct from Walmart you’re probably getting what you think you’re getting. Buy from one of the third parties, who knows.

Good to know!

Direct from manufacturer is the only way to be absolutely certain. A "high street" store which also sells online is a safer bet than an online only seller; there's more incentive to protect your reputation when something tangible is at risk.

With regards to Darn Tough, REI's going to be a reliable place for any of the brands they carry. Their return policy is god-tier too, especially if you live close to a physical store. I'm done shilling now.

You can filter by ‘retailer’ or ‘seller’ on most of these sites that have marketplaces. I would buy direct from Walmart and feel pretty good about it. Not from Amazon because of their inventory co-mingling with third party sellers.

Yeah, I have only heard great things about REI. Thank you a lot for the recommendation!

I see... Thanks for the heads up!

Yeah, it makes sense. Thanks a lot for the tip!

This is BIFL, not the internet safe shopping subreddit. There are 690 billion websites. We cannot list the reliable and unreliable ones. And zero retailers have a 100% legit rating as fraud is always a possibility. Literally the only way is to buy nothing and that's not possible so do what you can.

As far as I know, only Amazon does the insane comingling and online marketplace thing that makes counterfits so easy to get. It is frankly insane imo, even AliExpress and eBay have a seller linked to the individual sale so reputation matters to some extent.

There are retailers and there are marketplaces. Marketplaces are always going to have a chance to be fake some other fuckery. You can also check any brands website.

Retailers will almost always sell the authentic product. Walmart will carry the brand they advertise because if Walmart sells a counterfeit of that brand then they're not distributing the product they're contractually obligated to. Any store with a brick and mortar counterpart is generally going to be a retailer and thus you'll have that assurance.

Marketplaces invite other sellers to come in and sell via their store, and some massive brands might have some guarantee you can get scammed on some other products. Marketplaces include Amazon, Newegg, Ebay, Etsy and most other online only stores that carry multiple brands. Marketplaces are nice because you can quickly search product types and compare options, and sometimes they have really easy and hassle free return policies.

The best assurance you can get however is find and buy directly from the brands website. This is good to do for many reasons. It rewards good brands because they don't have to pay a cut to the marketplace, reseller, and/or retailer, you might get additional warrantee protections, and you KNOW you're getting the real thing. Downsides of this is you're might not going to get as fast and/or completely free shipping and sometimes return policies on sites like Amazon are so hassle free that they can be preferable if you're iffy about a product you're buying.

Unless I can find a much better price from a retailer or marketplace I will generally buy directly from the brands website if that's an option, barring that if you must buy from a marketplace there are ways to see if it's being offered through an authentic dealer or a potentially shady reseller.

Wow. That's a really comprehensive answer. I hadn't thought about this. Thank you very much for your response!

Best chance for something on Walmart etc. is to make sure it's sold by Walmart (or whichever store) itself, and not a third party listing on their site. Walmart stores in person I've found reliable for non-counterfeit, but online can be less reliable. Same for other stores like Best Buy. I always check if there's a "sold and shipped by [name]" button in their filters, and always apply those, so I know it's something that's been at least hopefully looked at by the retailer.

Some things it's just better to go to the manufacturer's site directly. Ordering a laptop battery from Best Buy's site can get you some knockoff that has sat losing life in a warehouse for the last two years, already nigh unusable by the time you buy it, for example (and a sadly true example).