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Ironic anicdote: I order a cheap ($50) generic waterproof jacket from Amazon and got what was obviously a counterfit Northface (with branding and everything). Thankfully they sold and priced it as a generic so I knew what I was getting. Overall a reasonable coat but the detail elements (velcro and straps) were of poor quality.

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You ordered a cheap jacket and the quality of the jacket you received was commensurate with the price and met your expectations. What is the irony?

the irony is that I ordered a cheap generic jacket and got a cheap counterfeit jacket.

meaning I was OK with generic Chinese merchandise, but it is more convenient for them to supply counterfeits than to produce something actually white-labeled.

Why would it be cheaper to design, make and sell two different jackets versus one?

Well Yes. That's the irony. If you had even minimal trademark enforcement, the risk ratio would encourage you to manufacture and sell white label and counterfeit jackets as separate firewalled vendors. So one could be shut down without effecting the other. Here the risk is clearly so low they don't even bother... or maybe they have firewalled vendors and the cost of setting up a generic vendor is so low that its less than the dual manufacturing pipeline... either way that's the irony.

Irony != Counter intuitive

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