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Q: Would you expect products from online shops like 360buy to be faked/2nd hand?
From Taobao shops I would expect a bit of dodginess, but not from the big established online retailers . Today a delivery guy came with a package for me from 360buy/JD. It was 'pay on delivery' so I ask if I can inspect the product. It is wrapped in two layers of plastic, then a bag. Inside the bag is the box, looks brand new, not a problem with that. The box is sealed with stickers. Inside the product is looking authentic, but there are fingerprints on it. This was a Samsung SSD drive, I doubt very much that Samsung puts fingerprints on top of their products prior to shipping them.
The delivery guy left without any money but with his 2nd hand product. Now to try the next shop.
Taobao has sent me a few second-hand goods. My shirt was dirty when it arrived, but it's still kicking. Too bad the stains were baked in... and persist.
I expect anything and everything in china to be faked/2nd hand. I don't mind fakes as long as nobody gets hurt. I have a serious shanzhai addiction. 
Scandinavian:
but how does one go about actually getting something proper? In this case I need the thing for my work-laptop, I cannot have some stuff that some random guy has been fiddling around with.
Hulk:
To be honest, I'm not quite sure. Maybe you can read the review and see if others have been complaining? If they send you something bad, you can leave a negative review.
When you say it like that, it makes me think of a storage device. If it's something like a hard drive of sorts (external, internal, thumb, et al), then you can wipe the drive so no data is recoverable. I actually wrote a program that does this, since I don't like to keep personal data of myself on my hard drive.
xinyuren:
Buying in Hong Kong is the only way to be reasonably sure. They have fakes in HK, but if you go to a retail outlet, you can be pretty confident about your purchase. I don't believe anything a business tells me in the mainland.
Scandinavian:
@Pulk. You are right that data can be wiped clean. However storage devices comes in two flavors. Mechanical and Solid State. The mechanical drives will have wear and tear as they have been in operation. Usually if treated well, not bumped around during operation they can run forever (well you know) without problems. For the solid state drives, there is no mechanical wear and tear, the drive do get worn though. If you take a entry level SSD disk, it will be dead after 3 years of daily use of writing 10Gb of data.
In both cases, someone having tried the drive for half a day would mean plenty of life left. But it is the same as standing in a shop, buying a coke and then the guy in front of you takes a sip. It's still a perfectly good coke, but your wouldn't pay full price for it.
@xin. I am actually REALLY close to Hong Kong, but even closer to Macau. (can walk to the Macau border in about an hour) Can you recommend any places in Hong Kong for computer hardware (I am not looking for dirt cheap deals, but just stuff that is reliable without getting "foreigner discount")
Hulk:
Yep, good point. You shouldn't pay full price for it. I bought a brand new hard drive in America, and it had been refurbished. Bastards. I was able to recover anything left on the drive which piqued my interest. Anyway, haven't the SSDs gone through some pretty awesome technological advances? I thought current drives could be written to over 10 million times per "cell" (forgot what it wascalled), and even newer ones have no such problem. Then, even if one cell dies, you can still use the rest. But you did say entry level. Blast this infernal phone. So yeah, I'd leave negative reviews in such cases.
I don't think fakes is necessarily the biggest worry, websites like 360buy, Amazon and Tmall typically sell the real stuff. The problem is sometimes you get the returned item, that someone else didn't want. Usually they try to package it back together to appear unopened. Also, it is common that a refurbished item gets put into the "New" section and sold for the same price.
Just read reviews for the item. If it is genuine or a fake, people will know, and also will tell you how to spot a used or fake/stolen item. Also, do not trust the seller ratings on Taobao, as they send out free gifts and discounts to customers to get rated 5 stars. Only read the reviews.
There is a general rule of thumb for China. The only thing that can be expected is the unexpected. Unless you have 100% proof that what you think and want are right, expect them to be wrong.
When it comes to buying electronic stuff, I always look for stores which offer warranty (1 year minimum and the more years they can offer, the better). After that, for me, it doesn't really matter if the item is fake or not, as long as I can use it.
I try not to place too much importance on the brand, since I've seen devices that can "change the brand". Whenever I go to the electronics market here, I see shops selling those devices and sometimes they are right next to a shop that sells all these huge Sony, Samsung, LG, LED and plasma screens. I always wonder if the shop used one of those "change the brand" devices on their LED and plasma screens and changed a Chinese brand (XX brand) to Sony or whatever.
Amazon.cn was able to ship a new product, even within the promised delivery time
I was looking for Iphone earphones last month on Amazon.cn here, and a bunch of fake ones popped out. I was hope Amazon wouldn't allow such things yet I was wrong.
