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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.

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> 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

> battery operated electronics ... burning your house down

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

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