Need a pillow

Here in Ukraine, all is possible. Need a good pillow; simply contact a place that sells pillows and mattresses. And your good to go, right.

So when you see some pricing that is just too low, you have to wonder, why? When you look into it, you find it is a cheap knock off. Now buying a knock off is one thing as long as you know what you are buying. Today knock offs can look very "real" So, in the inexpensive stores, you can be sure to expect these knock offs. But in the middle and high end, you need not worry. Right?

Here is the problem; a quality mattress store would understand what they have in stock. That is if it is "real" or a "copy." But who sold it to the store? The wholesale buyer is looking for the absolute best product at the best price. If a middle person is involved as so many are in the import business, you could lose trust in who and where the item originated from. Is it possible to sell a knock off as an original item? It is very possible. One person arrived home with the new pillow and suspected something, after opening it the "cat was let out of the bag" sort of speak. It was an extremely poor knock off on the inside.

So, what about the mid-level stores, do they have the real product or the knock off. It is frustrating.

In comparison to Canada, the friendly government has ensured there are a lot of controls in place and policed. That said, I have seen first hand the custom inspectors looking over certain things, and it was clear they had no idea what they were looking at. But, the paperwork was in line, and the tags indicated the correct information.  Once in Canada, I was looking for a quality down pillow; in Canada, a good to very good queen pillow at a pillow and bed lines store was selling for around 40.00 to 80.00 USD. One day I was in this store, and they had a sale on a high-quality pillow; it was 9.00 USD. I questioned why, and the salesperson said we just happened on a great deal from the manufacture. I bought it, and it let me down right away. So it had the tags, and it looked good, I did not do much about the pillow and dismissed it as "if it's too good to be true it probably isn't" lesson. Also, in Canada, I have seen pillows sell for 60-80 dollars, and the promotion offered 20% or even 30% off. I bought it and believed it was real.

So what is the answer in Ukraine, it's like the wild west of North America here with Knock off items? I simply want a very good quality pillow for a fair price. I do not want or expect to pay 10.00 for it. If the real price should be 75.00, ok, I will pay it, but I do not want a good or not good knock off for that price. 

The lawlessness or, as others call it the corruption is deep in Ukraine. I was in the park with my boys last week, and I met a couple of other children, they both told me their names and were interested in speaking as they heard me speak English to my children. The one went on to explain how corruption has set his country into a tailspin, and he sees there is simply no future for him here in his own country. I was surprised to hear these words from a nine-year-old boy. He also expressed his parents do not approve of his video game playing as they feel he has too much screen time. And I still need a pillow.