I realize it's regarding products sold As Seen on TV, which have a dubious reputation to begin with, but I'm wondering whether anyone has experience with the knockoff products that have cropped up in droves lately. I mean, I did actually wind up buying a knockoff pillow pet for someone as a gift. It was smaller and the design wasn't quite as cute, but as a gift for a kid on a holiday it worked out. Far as I know, it took the kid about six to eight months of nightly cuddling and some rough play for its eye to fall out, which was fixed easily anyways. Granted, I feel like knockoff products are made for this purpose in life anyways, but I have no idea how actual Pillow Pets hold up, so I don't know if I got out of a potentially ridiculous deal, anyways. I'd like to compare one of these products to a knockoff at some point.
When it comes to knockoffs, I like to stick with clothing and decor. Honestly, when it comes to things that you plan on treating roughly, a knock-off is not the way to go.
Depends on the item. I always look closely at it for quality to see if I can find any obvious weakness that will break in s hurry. Sometimes it's fine, other times they are decidedly cheaper and not going to hold up.
I try to avoid anything that is a knockoff as it just feels cheap to me. Even if others have no clue it is a knockoff, I still know and it bugs me. I would rather save up the money to buy the real thing.
I couldn't care less about brands and knock offs etc etc etc. If something works, it works. If it looks good, it looks good. I don't go out of my way to figure the whole thing out.. I just buy what looks like a deal and if someone tells me later it's a knock off, I'd shun them for knowing the difference in the first place lol.. I kid, I kid.. but ew. Who cares :/
In general, I am open to trying lesser known brands, but with infomercial products in particular, I would really need to see the knockoff item in person to judge it's quality. I think with the explosion of sites such as Amazon, I've become much more open overall to trying out new brands of stuff that my local stores never carried or only recently just started carrying. After growing up for many years in Ohio, and shopping at stores such as Macy's and JC Penny's, you can get kind of tunnel vision and only know the common brands such as Cuisinart or GE, and not even think to consider other lesser known brands for stuff such as Nesco, or Bella or others. I've had both good and bad experiences. For example, I picked up a knockoff of the Pasta Boat at Burlington Coat Factory years ago, and tried to cook pasta with it and nearly burned myself severely. The unit was made with such cheap and flimsy plastic that when you heated it in the microwave to make pasta it became soft and wobbly. When I tried to take it out of the microwave it nearly spilled boiling water all over me, and the handles themselves detached from the base. It was so cheap they couldn't even be bothered to glue the handles to the device - they just snapped on. However back in the 80's I used to *love* going to flea markets and discount stores with my folks, because many of them were selling really high quality knock offs of Transformers. They looked almost identical to the real thing and the build quality was just as good - they only came in slightly different colors. So my friends all thought I had some special limited edition versions of them, lol. Of course my parents liked them too because they didn't have to pay full price for them.
There is a difference between knock off (pretending to be the same brand) or something that looks similar and the name sounds similar. Some of these products can be okay, it's trial and error. You buy brands and they cost more because of the reputation they have built up through marketing. I'm willing to try them if the price is right, but reading other people's reviews can be a cheaper and safer way to do it.
