This never happened to me for an actually valuable item, but I've received stuff like flimsy chinese nail clippers rather than the one I ordered.

Not even knocks off, just completely different items. A proper knock off would've probably been just as good as the original...

The idea likely was that nobody is going to bother making much of a fuss over a 20 dollar nail clipper.

You're exchanging a 50% chance (?) of having to fill in a form with a 100% chance of having to drive to the store, finding parking, going home and having a 50% it doesn't work when plugged in anyway.

A lot of brick and mortar stores are turning into Alibaba / Tenu / Shine resellers as well lately.

Seeing more and more AI generated illustrations on products too.