Be aware when shopping for electronics this holiday season or any time that a lot of things you see for sale are actually vendor-badged versions of some generic item sold by Chinese or other manufacturers. So there could be huge price swings for basically the same thing.

Multiple products that share same internal components

An example of this is Thunderbolt 4 docks. Here’s some examples:

If you look at them, they have some common characteristics. The same number and types of ports, located in the same place front and back, with maybe some minor differences — like maybe a different power LED indicator or a button for power. But the specs are the same, like on all three above have 90 watt power delivery to connecting device.

Their cases are usually different. They may included different accessories with the product too which can account for some of the price difference.

But basically they all most likely buy the same board (guts if you will) from the same place and then assemble it into their own case and possibly move a port connection to the side maybe to differentiate their product.

Facebook Ripoffs

Facebook has a lot of ads on there reselling this sort of generic stuff someone buys at a site like Alibaba and then reselling it as if it’s the next big thing. For example, I recently saw ads on Facebook for a portable air compressor on sale now for only 3 hours for 40% off its normal price of $130 but you have to act now. So I checked on Alibaba and found the same exact thing for $25 for qty 2 and as long as under $20 for over 6,000 (see pic below). You can even have them add your logo! Now it’s normal for a business to markup to cover their costs and most people won’t want to buy two or wait for Alibaba to ship, so that’s fine. But go on Amazon or other similar site and you can find the same compressor for $38 with free two-day shipping (with a different logo on it). That’s far more reasonable of a markup for the convenience and less than half the cost of the Facebook so-called blowout deal.