Valerio and Their "Brand Ambassadors"

Most of my Social Media Presence is either on Facebook or Twitter, but I sometimes also post on Instagram. Outside of family members and personal friends, I don't have many followers. I'm not an "influencer" by any stretch of the imagination.

I Am Approached

So, imagine my surprise to receive a comment to my Instagram post from an account who was not even a follower of mine, valerio_com, asking if I wanted to do a collaboration. This account has about 30 followers and doesn't post very often. In the comment, I was asked to send a DM to another account, shop.valerio, which has many more followers and seems to be the main account for them with valerio_com being used to leave comments on other Instagrammers' posts.

Until yesterday, I had never heard of Valerio and had no idea who or what they were about. In the picture I posted, I was wearing my cycling helmet, so I first assumed that they might be a company that deals in cycling equipment.

How wrong I was! Valerio in an online company that sells fashionable sunglasses and wristwatches. According to this Quora profile, they are described as:

Valerio online store provides the Italy top watch and sunglasses brand. We offer the best designer watches and trendy collection of sunglasses of various types. Visit Valerio Sunglasses and Watch Outlet .

 I guess English isn't Aliza Thomas' native language.

Okay, I was a bit confused, at first. For one, there is nothing in my post or over the entirety of my Instagram account that even suggests that I wear designer anything, like clothes, sunglasses, watches, etc. Also, I live in Honolulu, Hawaii and sunglasses are as easy to buy as t-shirts. I could easily find high-end designer sunglasses anywhere in the city, especially in Waikiki. I also wear eyeglasses, so the lenses on any sunglasses I wear would have to be prescription or I'd have to wear contact lenses under them.

I sent a DM to them and received this reply:

Hi, thanks for reaching out. We have been looking for a few people who fit our style, to potentially collab.

We would be happy to offer you 50% off on any item in our store so that you can try out our elite sunglasses and watches and become an official ambassador! You will earn money that is 30% commission for every purchase using your ambassador code. Plus, we also do FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE.

All we ask is that when we move ahead together, you tag us in a pic of you wearing our gear and we will feature you on our IG & website! Does that sound good?

At least their English proficiency improved.

When I didn't just jump right in, they upped my discount to 60%.

This seemed a bit weird to me. I still couldn't figure-out exactly why I, who have no sense of Fashion, had been contacted. Besides, I had a dental appointment yesterday and obviously had more important things on my mind.

Eventually, I decided not to participate in this "collaboration" and politely declined. They came back with an "offer" to have me pay for my initial purchase in installments, but I still declined. Their final message to me was very polite and they left the door open for me to take them up on it at a future date.

Who Are These People?

Now that my interest had been piqued, I decided to try to learn a little bit more about Valerio.

I first wanted to know if they are really an Italian company, so I did a WhoIs search on the website.

What I discovered didn't really surprise me. For one thing, shopvalerio.com is a Shopify site, which is not a bad thing, but the site is registered anonymously. You would think that a legitimate company wouldn't keep its website registration as a secret. It just makes me wonder what else they might be hiding.

The site was first created in 2019, so it's barely a year old.

I had another look at the main Instagram account to check their posting history. This was too difficult to do quickly because they have over 1000 posts and I didn't want to attempt to scroll to the first one only to be disappointed if I didn't find anything. However, I did check their account history and discovered that the account had first been set-up in 2014 and had other names used for it before their current one.

While not a deal-breaker, it doesn't look good for a legitimate company to simply recycle an existing account, rather than set-up a brand new account for themselves, in my opinion.

For what it's worth, there really is a company in Italy using the website valerio.it but it's a web marketing company and they don't sell sunglasses or watches. There are actually many companies that use the name "Valerio" in Italy and it's a common surname in that country.

This reminds me of that time when Payless Shoesource opened a brick-and-mortar store under the name "Palessi" where they sold Payless shoes at designer label prices, just to see what would happen. Sure enough, the prank showed that if you put a fancy name on the door and charge high prices, people will pay whatever you ask for.

The Products

I didn't see anything on the site with the brand name "Valerio" on it. It seems to just be the name of the store.

Brand names just for watches offered by Valerio include, Swish, Hannah Martin, Lige and Golden Hour. Each of these brands has a website where you can buy the watch of your choice at a lower price than what Valerio is asking you to pay. Sometimes, the price is a little lower and sometimes the prices are dramatically lower when you buy directly from the company and some of these brands can even be bought at your local Walmart.

What is even funnier is that you can buy these watches off of AliExpress for even lower prices, though it will take a lot longer for your package to arrive from China, between four and five weeks. If you want it faster, buy it from Amazon or Walmart.

As far as sunglasses are concerned, I personally couldn't justify spending $100+ on a pair of sunglasses. You can buy a good pair locally or from a online retailer with an established reputation, like Amazon.

In a nutshell: Valerio isn't selling anything they made or designed themselves. They are selling other companies' products at higher prices than you would pay if you bought them directly from their respective companies.

If I had to guess where they get their products from, I'd take a stab in the dark and say that they might have bought them through AliExpress. Buying a watch for $20 and selling it for $100+ would make a good profit for Valerio.

The "Brand Ambassadors"

As best as I can tell, Valerio seems to be targeting random people with their "offer", without regard for the actual content of their Instagram pages. In these difficult economic times, Valerio is offering a generous commission to people who may be financially struggling. Even if an "ambassador" never makes a sale, Valerio still has their money from the initial purchase and they've received lots of free advertising. Even at the 50-60% discount, Valerio is still making a profit from the first purchase and any orders made through the "ambassadors" is just gravy.

A Quick Disclaimer

I just want to point-out that I am not saying that Valerio is a scam. I have no doubt that if you order a product from them that you will receive what you paid for. You'll just be paying more.

If you paid for the product and didn't get it, then it would be a scam.

What I am saying is that Valerio doesn't seem to be anything other than an online store that someone set-up and that doesn't seem to be linked to a company in Italy. They put a fancy, foreign name on the site and are selling products at higher than normal prices.

My Verdict

Many of us on Social Media have been approached by someone we know, someone we knew in the past or even total strangers who wanted us to either buy some product from them or join them in working for Herbalife, Lularoe, etc. Many of us soon resent being approached like this and hounded into buying something or signing-up to be in their downline.

While Valerio isn't engaging in multilevel marketing, they are recruiting people into being their "brand ambassadors" and into providing them with free advertising. Personally, I don't want to be That Guy to my friends and relatives.

Personally, I'd advise you to decline Valerio's "offer".

Duane Browning