It’s no secret that China has become the world’s workshop. An article in The Economist reported that as of early 2015, China was producing about 80 percent of the world’s air-conditioners, 70 percent of its mobile phones and 60 percent of its shoes.
At the same time, China also produces a massive amount of fake products. Here are some the most commonly found fake products in China:
1. Fake consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are one of the most popular fake products you’ll find in China. One example of a counterfeit name brand product here is the iPhone. New iPhones often cost much more than what you might pay in the United States, due to import tariffs and VAT.
It should come as no surprise, given the high margins on fake iPhones, why counterfeiting is so rampant. This past summer, police in Beijing shut down a counterfeit manufacturing operation and seized more than 40,000 fake iPhones valued at more than $19 million.
Most of the fake electronic products are counted as copycat products. For example, you may find a phone with spelling of “Nokai” instead of the brand “Nokia”. The design may be totally different from a real Nokia phone, but the name of the brand is clearly a copy.
2. Fake luxury brand bags and purses
Luxury brand bags are every girl’s dream. But not every girl can afford to buy the real thing. This demand led to the birth of a massive fake luxury bag and purse market.
The fake bags can be divided into different levels:
High-end copies – same design, same logo, excellent workmanship and material. It’s often hard to tell the difference between a high-end copy and the real thing.
Acceptable quality – same design, same logo, poor quality material.
Low quality – same design, misspelled logo and/or poor quality material.
It’s not hard to find a low quality fake in just about any wholesale market in China’s major cities. But some wholesale markets that sell high-end copy bags will go to great lengths to make their bags indistinguishable from their genuine counterparts.
