Parallacs said:
If you could list one location as the capital of counterfeit-land, where would it be?
Honk Kong has gained a reputation in the past decade of being the main source of fake electronics/videogames/apple. How else would Hong Kong get it any cheaper than the rest of the world?
Actually, if I was going to trust anywhere, it's Hong Kong. For fakes, you've got to go a little further north to mainland China and GuangZhou.
But then, i've always gone shopping there in person. My mailorder stuff from ebay has actually been mostly from the Mainland, but I've only bought lots of accessories, step rings, filters, etc. I've known they were knock-offs when I bought them, they never claimed to be brand-name anyway.
As for lenses, flashes, and high-value items, I'd have no problems going up Sai Yeung Choi st or Mong Kok Computer Centre in person with a fist-full of cash. The reason they can give such low margins is because of their high turnover. If you're a shop, and you buy lenses at $1000, and sell one a day for $1200, you've made $200 in the day. Or if you sell them for $1020 and sell ten in a day, you've still made your $200 profit for the day. That's also why places like B+H are cheaper than your local shops in the states, it's just volumes.
But buying higher-value items via ebay, that can be hit-and-miss, you just have to be careful, read their feedbacks, some places have over 10,000 or more positives. Also make sure you read the descriptions, the bigger sellers are normally honest and say "it's a tripod ring for <canon lens>", they never say "this is canon-brand tripod ring for <lens>".
(Although as some of you have pointed out, they get confused by which lens is which sometimes. eg I keep trying to find an adapter for an m42-lens to an Olympus OM-body, all the adapters I find say 'OM' on them, but then '4/3rds' as well, some don't realise that OM and 4/3rds are different mounts...)
