Aliexpress items - how to spot if genuine or fake

I can't really find a way of ever knowing whether fake or genuine.
But I do know about measuring risk and balancing risk against potential losses/gains. It comes down to your own attitude and how rich/poor you are. If you can afford to lose the money go for it. If not, save up a little more.

In the UK you have certain consumer rights when buying from either a physical or on-line retailer. Exercising those rights should you need to are not always easy but likely to be easier than if you buy from international sellers. These UK prices in part reflect the consumer rights retailers need to factor in; in other words you buy up front a degree of consumer protection. (edited)

You usually just wait till it turns up then you'll know

It's best to assume they are "fake" as you will no doubt not have any warranty with them. That is probably the only difference though. Most fake items are actually created by the same people who made the "genuine" item and it probably was on the same production run. The best example I can recall was the Nintendo Wii controllers. the only difference was the final printing, everything else was the same (of course no warranty though!)

I can't comment about earphones, but I've purchased a set of knives and it cost me around £70. I've been using them in a professional kitchen for around 5 months now and still as sharp as day 1. I've since bought another set for the house. Being a chef for 30 years, I know that if these knives are sold in the UK, I would be paying easily £200 for them. On both occasions, the knives arrived within 3 weeks, and would certainly buy from Ali-Express again without hesitation.

It’s fairly easy to research the seller to check if they are legit, e.g.
reddit.com/r/a…ss/

Don’t forget Amazon charges sellers a considerable amount of commission - I assume sites like AliExpress charge less. I’m also not sure VAT is always being collected on these kind of sites despite what they now say. That’s based on a recent experience from BangGood where the customs label was pure fiction.

So makes sense in some cases that there will be a price difference

I won't be able to spot, so I only buy cheap item like mobile phone case, mobile phone stand, usb cables, etc.

BTW, is the 20% - 25% less already included VAT?

Thanks .. they were £89 when i look last night... just brought off amazon thanks for the pointer