Certainly there's likely to be no reason that knock-offs can't be the same quality as, or better than, the original for much less price—but making the knock-off

Certainly there's likely to be no reason that knock-offs can't be the same quality as, or better than, the original for much less price—but making the knock-offs appear to be the same quality while actually being lower quality is even cheaper still. As a counterfeiter, why wouldn't you make the cheaper product if no-one can tell the difference? I am thinking here particularly of counterfeit chargers, which are designed to mimic the originals to comical extremes—so that you essentially wouldn't know without tearing them apart—but which are missing crucial safeguards that mean that they are much more prone to catch fire. If, as ClumsyPilot suggests (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27573695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27573695), you are thinking only of fashion items, then it's probably less of an issue.