Fragrance Fact Check: Is Cologne from Walmart.com Authentic or Fake?

Father’s Day is upon us. Once again, it’s time to fire up the grill, crack a cold one, and wonder why it’s so difficult to find a gift for the man you’ve known your whole life. Another tie? More golf balls? How many whiskey glasses does a person need?!

Enter: a nice cologne to elevate Dad’s whole vibe. It also comes in a nice bottle, which gives Dad at least one aesthetically pleasing thing to keep in the bathroom. (No, his economy-sized bottle of sunscreen doesn’t count.)

When it comes to fragrance, quality is everything — and there are tons of fakes on the market. Walmart.com has incredible deals on scents, but is their product authentic?

The answer is: Yes, but…

To get the real deal, you want to make sure you’re buying directly from Walmart. That’s because, in addition to selling its own product, Walmart acts as a third party distributor for other companies, some of which are more trustworthy than others.

There are two types of outside vendors on Walmart.com:

• Pro Sellers: These are vendors who’ve earned Walmart’s “Pro Badge" by meeting its highest performance criteria, quickly delivering product and responding the customer inquiries.
• Marketplace Sellers: Vendor standards in this category are slightly less stringent. It may be a newer business, or one that has not yet proven it meets the standards necessary for the “Pro" badge.

Although fake colognes are a violation of the intellectual property laws Walmart requires its sellers adhere to, Walmart Marketplace can only do so much quality control as a distributor focused primarily on metrics like shipping time and cancellation rate. Just look at the most recent reviews on a (purported) bottle of Acqua di Giò:

If you receive an obvious fake, there’s good news: All products bought on Walmart Marketplace are backed by Walmart’s protection — meaning that if you have an issue with a product and the seller doesn’t resolve it within 48 hours, Walmart will intervene and find a solution.

Still, it would be awkward to exchange a knockoff Father’s Day gift for a legit one, so here’s how to make sure Dad’s new Cool Water doesn’t smell more like pool water:

• Go to Walmart.com’s selection of men’s fragrances and select “Retailer" from the filters on the left:
• 
• From here, select “Walmart" (not “Pro sellers" or “Marketplace Sellers fulfilled by Walmart"), which narrows your search down to just the colognes that are sold directly from Walmart.

This is how we scored the Dad-approved summer scent Versace Pour Homme, which has notes of lemon and bergamot. A 1 oz. bottle that normally goes for over $30 was on sale for only $20.

We made sure it was sold and shipped by Walmart.com:

When the cologne arrived, it looked (and more importantly, smelled) like the real deal:

Here’s another view of the box:

Virtually all legitimate colognes will have a serial number on the bottle or box, as this one did. If you want to be very certain that any cologne you’ve purchased is genuine, experts recommend a couple other things to check:

• Examine the packaging for any misspelled words or other obvious flaws. While Dad may love deli meats, he’s probably not gonna be into Versace Pour Ham.
• You can also try sampling a spray from the bottle you’ve received and comparing it to an in-store sample.

Speaking of which, to be 100% absolutely sure you’re getting the real cologne, go in-person to a physical Walmart location and find the fragrance section. Here’s what it looked like during our recent visit:

You can feel confident that the colognes in Walmart’s brick-and-mortar stores are authentic. Plus, if you don’t already know what fragrance you want, sampling in person just makes … scents. (Did you think this wasn’t gonna end on a dad joke?)