on TaoBao and eBay-the story of bulks and fakies.

[AutisticandProudLuna]

Alright, so...what is the situation with these things?  I am talking about two things: the ridiculously cheap fakies on TaoBao/eBay, and then, the canon (or very good knockoffs?) bulk on ebay. Things like blind bags way below market price, and other toys like Filly Princess, Zelfs, etc.

How do they do this? For the fakies, I guess they must be made seperately, but what do you figure is the situation? Is it big, rather unethical factories like the real toys, or a few people doing the project to themselves?

And as for the bulk canon(?) toys....are they just really accurate fakies, even when they look identical to me? Are they being stolen by workers from the actual toy factories from Hasbro, Mattel, etc to be sold? Usually they sell out of Hong Kong.

I am both fascinated as to how this happens and want to know how ethical they are to purchase....

(if you don't know what I mean, search 'mini lalaloopsy' or 'zelfs' or 'my little pony lot' and those canon looking, but way cheap lots, usually from HK, that say free shipping are it. They say 'used' a lot of the time, and don't have packaging, but they have tons of lots and are not really used.

[Violet CLM]

if you don't know what I mean

Ah sweet innocence.

I'm not going to attempt to answer the ethics question--I have occasionally seen people here who do feel uncomfortable buying from China/HK for ethical reasons, though personally I don't care--but I can offer a few thoughts:

And as for the bulk canon(?) toys....are they just really accurate fakies, even when they look identical to me? Are they being stolen by workers from the actual toy factories from Hasbro, Mattel, etc to be sold?

It varies, but most fakies are recognizable as such. A good rough test is to compare how frequently a toy is being listed vs. how recently it appeared on shelves. If something pretty old is showing up in great quantities, it's probably a revival fakie. Here are some examples:

Spoiler

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Nearly (if not totally) identical to their corresponding funko minis, this set of twelve is much more common than all the rest, is always sold together (or in two sets of six), and is still being regularly listed despite all the toys involved being two waves old. Also notable is that two of the four Glow-in-the-Dark figures (don't remember which two, not a Funko fan) don't actually have non-fakie versions.
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These are fakies of a series of rare keychains that were introduced really early in the G4 timeline, but again, the production quality is immaculate. You could easily mistake them for prototypes missing their actual keychain components, but again, they're much easier to find than the real thing (even today), they're almost always sold in that exact group of nine, and six of them don't properly exist.
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Exact replicas of the "busy book" figures from a few years ago. Are they the same factory as the original releases? I have no idea, but I doubt they're fully legitimate because the originals were years old and these are being pumped out in ridiculous quantities.
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Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon are actually subtly different from their proper releases, but close enough that it's easy to settle for one, since they tend to be a fair bit cheaper.
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This seems to be a full list of a certain line of blind bag fakies. Most blind bag fakies are noticeable somehow--they tend to be missing cutie marks, for example, though there are a handful of designs out there that might be fakies or might be prototypes and who knows--but these are the best of the best. Most of them look identical to the real thing. The two Pepperdances, Forsythia, Prism Glider, Twilight Velvet, Ploomette, and Dainty Daisy are the only exceptions, and they still look totally plausible if you're not familiar with the originals. The rest are identifiable as fakies only really by virtue of being sold together with those few.
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Fakies of last year's Ponymania designs that popped up recently. High quality figures... but they're a year behind schedule, they're sold together, some of them (but not all) have the wrong designs, and they're sold with fashion style versions of the same (which never existed as proper releases).

That feels like a long list, and there are probably a few others I'm not thinking of. But honestly, usually you should be able to look at a toy and guess whether it's a fakie or not, because most of them are much more obvious-looking. The other stuff is the real thing, be it surplus production or QC failures or both.

So are blind bags below market price? No, they're just below retail price. The market price for a blind bag at this point is probably somewhere between $1 and $1.50--more for particularly desirable ones, less for totally random ones in bulk. All that extra you're paying at the store is for quality assurance (what there is of it), packaging, shipping, generally keeping MLP in business, and the hope that it's more ethical somehow.

[ringwraith10]

The question of ethics in this case is really difficult. Do you feel comfortable buying something that is likely real but probably didn't pass inspection? If you say no to that, how about this: would you buy said failed-inspection item to keep it from going into a landfill? If you are aware of the problem that the production of plastic places on the environment in the first place, you may change your mind (and/or you may lie awake at night, as I sometimes do, and worry about the moral dilemma that exists when you want to avoid using as much plastic as possible yet continue to collect plastic toys)...

Anyway, I'm not trying to tell you how to feel, of course (if I were, you'd probably be really confused). I'm just saying that if you really think about the ethics/morals involved in something like this, you might just chase your tail forever. (And we haven't even added the probably banned topics of underpaid workers, supporting communism [or supporting capitalist endeavors within communist China], etc.)

BTW, I go back and forth on whether I think the fake Nightmare Moon looks better than the real one or not.

[banditpony]

All that extra you're paying at the store is for quality assurance (what there is of it), packaging, shipping, generally keeping MLP in business, and the hope that it's more ethical somehow.

Also paying for the employees that work at Hasbro.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

All that extra you're paying at the store is for quality assurance (what there is of it), packaging, shipping, generally keeping MLP in business, and the hope that it's more ethical somehow.

Also paying for the employees that work at Hasbro.

Including the artists who actually designed everything MLP...   

[Wardah]

All that extra you're paying at the store is for quality assurance (what there is of it), packaging, shipping, generally keeping MLP in business, and the hope that it's more ethical somehow.

Also paying for the employees that work at Hasbro.

Including the artists who actually designed everything MLP...   

The good thing is the designers have already been paid for their work. They get paid a salary for their time and then their designs belong to the company. There are no royalties to be lost.

[Galactica]

With regard to the ones that look IDENTICAL to the real thing-  what has happened is that the China factory who was contracted to make that product for Hasbro-  MADE the product, and filled Hasbro's order.  THEN they made a bunch more, sometimes slightly different (sometimes exactly the same) to sell on the Chinese market (where such practices are not illegal). It can be impossible to tell the difference with these ones.

THIS guy explains it much better than I could.  www.qualityinspection.org/china-factory-taobao/ He has several articles on the same issue (he is talking about things other than ponies of course but the same thing happens in all the factories):

There are also fakies that are straight up attempts to make something almost like MLP so they can cash in on MLP success.  THese aren't usually sold in the US, but appear in countries with less strict copyright/trademark laws. 

There are also some ponies floating around that are color tests and samples-  the factory ran off a few so they could send them to variou Hasbro people in order to confirm what is is that Hasbro wanted.  Hasbro might have changed their minds on the specs or not like the way a color or combo came out, and so those ponies are often sold through the same factories that made them on Taobao or through people who are basically making a living buying up and reselling those things now.

[hathorcat]

Yup as others have said you have a combination of what are essentially factory rejects (i.e. the Hasbro made products being sold loose) and "fakies".

Fakies exist of just about everything mass market nowadays. They are no different than a dodgy Prada or pair of Nikes. A manufacurer copies a popular product and creates it as cheaply as possible for resale at much cheaper prices. Basically capatalising on the popular product and finding the market that wants something but cant afford it. Because China has no such thing as copyright and certainly does not respect the IPs of non Chinese companies, its a very simple process to start these up.

Factory rejects are simply items that have either been rejected or made in excess quantities off. They are typically solf by the manufacturer or factory managers on to local third party companies. Pre China's entry to the internet this did happen and the items were sold within the local market. With the nature of the internet, we now see a lot of these items being available to a worldwide community. But the source is essentially the same.

Ethics on any of it is very much down to an individual and can be arged pros and cons in both directions.

[LadyMoondancer]

I would be upset if someone at an American factory sold stuff on the side, but to be honest I see  Chinese "merchandise loss" as the price Hasbro pays to have their products cheaply manufactured overseas.  Like that fable of the poisonous snake who bites the girl who tries to cuddle it--"You knew what I was when you picked me up."

If I saw a unique looking item on Taobao that I really wanted, I would go for it.  IIRC  that's how the prototype breast cancer awareness ponies got into the community.  They turned up on Taobao and then, whoops, Hasbro never mass-marketed them.

[Chi]

The ones who pop up for a limited time with swapped eyes and symbols are likely rejects, prototypes, or someone fooling around with official merchandise with the intent for them to be discarded (and for their benefit to resell it) of generally good quality but never to be seen again.
Examples: G4 Minty without outline on mints, Fluttershy on blue body with Trixie eyes, clear glittery Fluttershy in standard size, etc.

Everything else will be a mystery in which one can only assume even further. I like a lot of the recent fakies and I've intentionally hunted for them from every corner of the web. It's the only thing keeping me in the g4 collecting and rekindled my desire for it.

[Carrehz]

Fluttershy on blue body with Trixie eyes

Technically, "Trixieshy" has Rarity's eye decals, not Trixie's. (Rarity eyes have eyeliner and more eyelashes at the top, whereas Trixie's have four lashes at the top and three on the bottom, and no eyeliner. Different eye colour, too.)

[Chi]

Fluttershy on blue body with Trixie eyes

Technically, "Trixieshy" has Rarity's eye decals, not Trixie's. (Rarity eyes have eyeliner and more eyelashes at the top, whereas Trixie's have four lashes at the top and three on the bottom, and no eyeliner. Different eye colour, too.)

Oops never noticed since I don't own Trixie!
So she's a mix of three instead of two.. Neat.

[Carrehz]

Fluttershy on blue body with Trixie eyes

Technically, "Trixieshy" has Rarity's eye decals, not Trixie's. (Rarity eyes have eyeliner and more eyelashes at the top, whereas Trixie's have four lashes at the top and three on the bottom, and no eyeliner. Different eye colour, too.)

Oops never noticed since I don't own Trixie!
So she's a mix of three instead of two.. Neat.

I honestly didn't notice the different eyes until a few months after I'd gotten both of them it's easy to miss.