My friend is perceptional on leather. And she is working in the shoe factory many years. With the progress of science and technology, artificial leather technology becomes more mature, many imitation such as PU, whether by smell or touch, almost difficult to tell the real or not from the appearance. Here are two simple methods for you.
Visual identification method: first, from the leather pattern, pores to identify, on the surface of natural leather can see the pattern, the pores do exist, and the distribution is not uniform, the opposite is animal fiber, hierarchical recognizable side section, the lower animal fiber, with fingernails scraping on will appear leather fiber up, a napped feeling, a small amount of fibres may be falling, and leather side can see fabric, without side animal fiber, the general skin without pores, but some have imitation pores, there will be no obvious pores, some patterns are not obvious, or have a regular artificial manufacturing pattern, pores are quite consistent.
Hand touch method: Leather feel elastic, leather face downwards bent to 90 degrees will appear natural creases, are bent in different parts, and the wrinkles are different and not symmetrical. Then you can judge it is leather basically. And imitation feels like plastic, recovery is poor, after be bent down the wrinkles are similar.
Some characteristics of natural leather are very different from the imitation, such as natural feeling, keeping warm, to adapt to the change of the temperature and the humidity, breathability and so on.
Guangda Shoes Wholesale market
Most of the shoes in Taobao are from Guangda shoes wholesale market. It is a little far from Guangzhou city center. There are not so many people in it. Also you can buy a pair of shoes under a good price easily. If you bring a camera and tell the salespersons you have a shop on line, you can get a better price. You also can find some shoes under the lowest price and a little old which had been kept in the warehouse. Most of the shoes are imitation. If you want to buy the leather, you should learn how to judge which is leather and which is imitation. This Wholesale market is very big. You should wear the comfortable clothes and shoes to walk around. I recommend you do not buy the shoes at the first time. You should ask the price and get the card from the shops first. If you are not professional on shoes, it is hard to judge the shoes whether are imitations. You should have a look at the original shoes first. And you can found the soles of the imitation are a little not good as the original one.
Grade：★★★★★★★
Reason: one of the biggest shoes wholesale markets in China. The price is also the best.
Customer: the low-and-middle level and casual style.
General Price: 10 ~ 30 (RMB) per piece, or even lower.
Jiefang Nan Shoes Wholesale market
If you know how to go to Guangzhou Beijing Road, you will know how to go to Jiefang Nan shoes wholesale market. The transportation is very convenient around this wholesale market. You can find some shops will put some shoes before their shops before the Spring Festival. They retail or wholesale those shoes at the lowest price.
Grade: ★★★★
Reason：price and quality are at middle level, the styles are complete and suitable
Customer: young, fashion, beautiful
General Price: around 30 ～ 100 (RMB) per piece
Zhanxi Road Station Shoes Wholesale market
Most of the shops will wholesale the shoes. Just some will retail the shoes. Because of the position of the wholesale market, the shoes will be the most expensive. The most famous building is Wantong Building. When you take a taxi to this wholesale market, you can tell the taxi driver you need to go to Wantong Building, then the taxi driver will know where is. Most of the foreigners like to buy shoes or clothes here, maybe because the transportation is very convenient and there are so many their friends are very family here.
Grade:★★★
Reason: the price is the highest, and you will found some cheaper clothes act as the expensive one.
Customer: most of the clothes are going to be sold to abroad; this wholesale market is focusing on the middle and high level people and focusing on the quality of the clothes. It is suitable for the business of the shop is very good.
General Price: around 100 (RMB) or more per piece