I Bought Knock-Off Animal Crossing Merchandise From Wish So You Don't Have To

A trend from a few years ago saw YouTubers heading over to Wish to buy "official" products, and upon arrival, see how they compare to the actual product. If you're unaware of what Wish is, it's an online company, much like eBay or Amazon, that sells an assortment of goods, for very cheap prices. I decided to put this to the test, and purchase 5 Animal Crossing products, and compare them to the real deal!

When you go to Wish and search Animal Crossing a surprisingly large amount of results pop up. Some items are unique to Wish, but others claim to be legit, or at least, try to. I browsed through to try find five things that I could at least compare to something I already owned, and managed to find four, but struggled finding a fifth. Thus, I decided to go with a t-shirt and see how the quality compares to a regular t-shirt, which brings us to our first item.

If you've ever bought a shirt from an online DIY company, you're probably familiar with the "paint" smell that comes with it... Buying a shirt I was really expecting this smell to linger inside the packaging, but surprisingly, it wasn't very prominent, if at all. For a shirt, it's nice and soft, but I'm not a huge fan of the color. When I purchased this, grey was the only option available, and with a shirt like this, it kind of makes it look like it's falling apart, especially with the faded print. If this was available in Blue, I'm sure I'd have liked it a lot more. It's not a clothing item I wear out of the house, but I often sleep in it and it does the job. For shirts, it's really not that hard to screw up, unless you're using really crappy materials. It's worth noting this was my most expensive purchase out of the bunch.

Now it's time to talk about the products that I had something to compare to, and I'll start from best to worst. I will start this off by saying a lot of these did end up surprising me. I've seen a fair few Wish videos and I was expecting the same levels of horror, but I really didn't.

I'll admit, out of everything I purchased, this was the one I expected to end up the worst - especially considering the price - but it's probably the one that held up the most. There really isn't anything inherently wrong with it, other than the stock photo having higher quality, and also having a different butt-tag. The only glaring issue I can see, which I didn't even notice until now, is the product title claims this has NFC and works as an amiibo, but I can't seem to find any sort of working NFC chip on the plush. The actual product tag is obviously a dupe due to its blur and low quality, but overall, I can't say I'm disappointed with owning this Marshal plush.

For comparison, the only other Animal Crossing plush is this Isabelle on I bought from EB Games back in the day. To be honest, if you don't look at the tags, there's not a whole lot of difference between the quality of these two.

Though the Marshal plush was the purchase I was happiest with, this was the one I was most excited to receive. The Animal Crossing Club Mocchi-Mocchi have been going around recently - and if they were to release more my wallet would be in a lot of danger - but other than those being a face pillow of your favorite character, they really don't have much to offer. Thanks to Wish, you're able to buy some that have a keychain attached, giving it more use than just being a pillow.

Again, there really isn't anything drastically different here, other than the listing on the site showing the fabric to be more fuzzy, and the same low quality tag issue as Marshal. When I received this, I did think the color was alright, but when comparing it to the official Mocchi Mocchi, it really is a lot more orange than I initially thought. Still, it's not something I'm disappointed by, and am rather happy with this purchase. I was looking for a small gift for someone who was an Animal Crossing fan, this probably would be at the top of my list.

As for these next two... not so much. The next product I bought was a skin for my Switch, and I'd like to preface this by saying I never actually put this on my Switch - I've never been a fan of putting decals and stickers on my consoles, and I didn't want to risk damaging the exterior of my Switch if these were poor quality.

In saying that, the design itself isn't inherently bad, it's just the fact they seemingly rip off actual companies, seemingly Controller Gear, whose official skin we compared it against. The sticker itself is much more thicker than the ones by Controller Gear, and again, we're not hugely impressed by the design being ripped off. I never bought this one with the intention of actually using it, and even without putting it near my Switch, if you're after decals, I'd still recommend buying some officially licensed ones, after all they're not that expensive.

And finally, the worst of the bunch, the amiibo card. Now, a lot of people do sell fan-made amiibo cards online with NFC chips built in, and I don't have an issue with that. What I have an issue with, is how they mark up the prices for the more popular villagers. The fact these aren't official amiibo cards, and they sell the less popular characters, like Isabelle, for $3, but the more popular ones, such as Molly and Beau, for upwards of $15, really doesn't sit well with me.

Obviously, even selling a singular official amiibo card for $15+ isn't a good practice, but when you're doing this with what are essentially dupes, it feels nothing more than a cash grab. I have nothing against unofficial amiibo cards, I've even considered purchasing some of the Zelda ones myself, but if I'm going to drop this money on a single marked-up card, I'd hope it be official material at least. It doesn't really help that you can buy them off eBay/Amazon for essentially the same price, and get official cards.

Granted, I dind't go into this expecting to get an official amiibo card made by Nintendo, but there's probably people out there who purchased one, expecting quality, and instead received this. The listing doesn't even mention it's not an official card. As for the card itself, it's rather chunky, lacks the shine, and is a little smaller than the official card, but it does still function as an Isabelle amiibo. The only thing that rubs me the wrong way here is how much they're charging for popular characters, like I mentioned, you can literally buy the official card for the same price elsewhere.

With that said, I will say I don't regret any of my purchases, but if you are going to Wish to buy something of great quality, I'd recommend shopping around first, or at least doing some research. However, if you're just after a small cheap knick-knack, you could probably find something on the site.

As always, if you haven't already, be sure to follow us over on Twitter and Tumblr, as well as considering supporting us on Patreon if you're able to, your help and support goes a long way! Feel free to join our discord server too!