[kjellsbells]

Cuts two ways. Why should I pay $200 for a BigBrand dog bed if this knockoff site shows SHRDLU has the same thing for $40? We all know that BigBrand gets it from the same supplier.

The real knockoff problem I see is that you buy what you think is BigBrand and get shipped Knockoff because someone is mingling inventory.

[malfist]

> We all know that BigBrand gets it from the same supplier

We don't know that. Look at Project Farm's review videos, he tests a lot of knock off and brand name products and it's almost always a get what you pay for situation. Knockoffs look similar, but use cheaper materials almost always.

The question is almost always, do you need the quality that you get from name brand. Not "why can I get name brand quality of half price"

[kevin_thibedeau]

He also routinely tests three or four identical products with nothing distinguishing beyond different paint jobs.

[malfist]

Yes, but those are three or four knock off products. The brand name is always different.

[throwaway27448]

Are we talking knockoffs like actively pretending to be the brand, or knockoffs like an off-brand copy of the exact same product? It's rare to find quality that can only be found with one brand—and then, it's mostly extremely expensive consumer electronics.

[delichon]

I love that guy's reviews for the thought and detail he puts in them. But his voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I'm looking forward to AI letting me swap it with James Earl Jones.

[paxys]

“Knockoffs” can be of many different types:

- Coming from the same factory line with the same quality control, just rebranded (Costco famously does this a lot)

- Factory seconds, goods with very minor defects (sometimes not even in the product itself but in the box etc)

- Manufacturers copying specs and running illicit production lines without the company’s authorization

- Complete knockoffs, where the external design was copied but the product is totally different

Ultimately for most of these Amazon brands you have no idea which of these you are getting. Just because a product looks the same doesn’t mean it is the same. And in a lot of cases, e.g. with battery operated electronics the knockoff manufacturers skip a lot of safeguards and it ends up burning your house down.

[red-iron-pine]

> Coming from the same factory line with the same quality control, just rebranded (Costco famously does this a lot)

Costco famously shops around aggressively for quality products -- not premium, but not crap -- and usually from big manufacturers who are already making excess supply.

Is common for supermarkets, too. Kraft can only get sub-par cheese one quarter so they make the same product but sell it as a white label option for lower margin. The factory line keeps running, product gets moved, inventory gets cleared, and margin is slightly lower but acceptable.

[resoluteteeth]

Also one very common subtype of the first option nowadays is that some company is just buying the exact same product from alibaba that you could buy from a random company on amazon or aliexpress, marking it up, and spending a few bucks on an internet presence and advertising to try to seem like a more legit company but doesn't really offer any more support or warranty than the brands that seem like a random combination of letters.

Whereas if it's costco it will at least be easy to get your money back if it dies in six months.

[panopticon]

I get so many ads on Instagram for things that are available alibaba but with fancy packaging and a huge markup. This seems like an evolution of the drop shipping hustle.

[paxys]

It's not an evolution that's literally what drop shipping is.

[dixie_land]

It's more than likely you're getting the first since Chinese factories simply make more of what the big brand has ordered and sell the rest to drop shippers

[resoluteteeth]

I don't think that's necessarily true as a general statement. There are also lots of knockoffs where they clearly aren't actually the exact same product because they're obviously slightly different in a way that shows it wasn't produced with the same dies/molds. I own several knockoffs like that (which I bought intentionally knowing they were a knockoff but the knockoff had good reviews and it wasn't worth spending extra for the original).

Occasionally there are even knockoffs that improve on the original product in some way, although usually they are just nearly as good at a much lower price.

[jameshart]

You don’t actually know those odds, and they vary by category.

[joshmn]

Is there a best and not-so-best category for certain odds?

[mrandish]

> battery operated electronics ... burning your house down

Unless it's high-power LiPo or Li-Ion, that's extremely unlikely.

[lubujackson]

Whenever I see keyboard-mashed company names I know I can go to Temu/AliExpress and get it directly there. You can tell when they are all sourcing from the same batch and instead of paying $40 the same thing is often $3.28 if you don't mind waiting a week.

[firmretention]

I used to do this more often, but I find the gap is narrowing a lot. Most of the time I find I don't save enough to justify getting it in two weeks over 1 day.

[alnwlsn]

The Aliexpress of 10 years ago was just ridiculous. One time I ordered something (a USB adapter) for literally a total price of 40¢, and it was delivered. It cost about 35¢ to send a regular US postcard domestically at the time, not counting the price of the postcard.

Now all the 40 cent items cost $2, and have $3 shipping. Or you can buy the same thing on Amazon for $6. Their search also used to be a lot better, today it's worse than Youtube search.

[Lord-Jobo]

We have a very large Amazon warehouse/center in town, and during my last prime trial I received maybe 5/25 items listed under “2 day shipping” in actually 2 days. Nearly all took 4 or more.

Cannot even imagine 1 day.

[antisthenes]

Aliexpress used to ship almost exclusively from China, so your package took 4-6 weeks in a best case scenario.

The value prop of Amazon is (was?) getting your item fast (not cheapest anymore and certainly not highest quality).

[dghlsakjg]

AliExpress rarely takes longer than 2 weeks from china these days, and I’ve had AE ship from china and beat Amazon sending domestically before.

Amazon used to be the cheapest and fastest with the best customer support. They have slipped backwards on all those fronts.

[persedes]

Depends on your own taste for risk, should the knock off brand have worse QC: what big brand gets you is the ability to sue them should their products fail catastrophically or cause you harm:

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/lawsuit-ruling-dog-leash-purch...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1k2ydn1rz8o

It seems like the retailers can be held responsible should "ASDAS_A!kr" drop off the radar, but might still be easier to sue local.

(I know "local" companies still find ways to settle / weasel their way out of responsiblities, but at least you know where to reach them...)

[genpfault]

> this knockoff site shows SHRDLU[1] has the same thing for $40?

    Person: Grasp the knockoff.
    Computer: I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHICH KNOCKOFF YOU MEAN.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHRDLU

[Pxtl]

Depends on the company. If it's a respectable Asian brand? I'm safe.

If it's an old and established US mark like Philips or Maytag or something? ZGGCD is the way to go.

[khazhoux]

Knockoff shnockoff. You get an upvote for SHRDLU!

[red-iron-pine]

> Cuts two ways. Why should I pay $200 for a BigBrand dog bed if this knockoff site shows SHRDLU has the same thing for $40? We all know that BigBrand gets it from the same supplier.

in many cases may even be from the same factory made by the same hands with a slightly different supplier or quality of fabric, or lower QA.

[alt227]

Why not go down to your local independent pet store, keep your money local and support your neighbours instead of giving it to directors and shareholders sitting on beaches in French Polynesia?

[knowaveragejoe]

That sounds virtuous, but there's no real way to know that the way you're spending your money is ending up the way that you're describing.

[lotsofpulp]

How do you know the local independent pet store is not buying their inventory from a business with directors and shareholders sitting on beaches in French Polynesia?

[john_strinlai]

even if that's the case, the local independent book store is still being supported by your patronage.

[eudamoniac]

But they are not offering anything worth patronizing. There's no value proposition. The prices are higher, getting the book takes longer, they don't ship it to me, and they never have a good book in stock. Independent book stores exist entirely as a charity-empathy business. They only exist because people feel bad about not shopping there.

[john_strinlai]

im not your dad, so im not going to tell you how to spend your money. if you prefer to support amazon, go for it. save your $1.25 or whatever.

but wow, i found this a sad comment to read. i find a lot of value in shopping local.

[eudamoniac]

What is the value you find excluding charity or empathy feelings?

[torstenvl]

Don't do this here.

[ThrowawayTestr]

The local business owner is still getting the profit not Amazon

[ryandrake]

Then, how do you know the local business owner isn't, in turn, using that profit to buy stuff from companies with directors and shareholders sitting on beaches in French Polynesia?

If you track the individual dollars, most flows of value eventually, after some number of loops, end up with the French Polynesia sitting people.

[ThrowawayTestr]

That local business owner pays taxes and presumably eats food and uses services from his or her own town. They also pay local people to work in their shop who also presumably spends some of their wages locally.

[danesparza]

"BigBrand gets it from the same supplier"

I don't think commerce (especially at Amazon) works the way you think it does.

There is a very good chance that when you buy something at Amazon that says it's BigBrand ... it's just a knockoff. Or a fake that has infiltrated another part of Amazon's supply chain. There is big money in lying to customers through Amazon.

[PaulHoule]

Depends what it is. I would trust Nike products from Dick's Sporting Goods physical store and from the Nike store online but not Amazon or any other online retailer. I'd be suspicious of perfume from (say) Giorgi Armani because rip-off artists have heard of it but who would rip off an boutique bland like Phlur?

[mrWiz]

It probably goes deeper than you expect. A friend of mine unknowingly bought counterfeit Darn Tough socks from Amazon, and only found out when he sent them in for warranty repair. Clough42 has a video on YouTube about identifying counterfeit Mitutoyo calipers (though I believe they came from Ebay rather than Amazon).

[PaulHoule]

Well back in the 1980s my mom was a clerk at a Jordan Marsh story that turned into Macy's selling men's clothing.

She would rail against fakes and would show you how the seams and other details were different and how, looking close, the difference was obvious.

My Uncle Dick, the oldest of the brothers, bought three fake Rolexes from the back of a truck on a trip to see my Great Aunt Simone in NYC. He thought he got a steal. Two months later he reported that they didn't run anymore!