Why Luxury’s Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse

At their cheapest, a pair of rubber Gucci slides cost $450 on the brand’s online store. On DHgate, a Chinese website that connects shoppers to a vast network of wholesale manufacturers, strikingly similar-looking “designer slippers” can be purchased at one-tenth the price.

The $450 pair, of course, is real, and the $45 pair is fake. But to Monica, a 30-something Miami resident who asked to be identified by her first name, it’s…