The market for cheap knock-offs are a thriving community. Illegal pirates have copied everything from Louis Vuitton bags to movie DVDs but it seems like China is taking the forgery to a whole other level with an entire fake Apple store.

The store located in the southwestern city of Kumming, China was discovered by an American blogger who was at first fooled by the whole Apple aesthetic of the store, until she looked a little closer and noticed the difference.

Apple only has four official retail stores in China, two in Beijing and two in Shanghai. This store in the southwestern city of Kumming seems to be an anomaly in more ways than not being listed in the Apple site.

At first glance the store has all the accouterments of all Apple stores everywhere. There's the usual wooden tables and stone floor, iPads on acrylic stands and the employees wearing the trademark Apple blue shirts. Look a little closer and the illusion is shattered. The winding stairs going to the lounge area poorly-made and not glass and piped handrails as patented in real Apple stores, the colored iPod adverts are skewed on the walls and there is a distinct lack of video screens on the walls. Even the logo in front of the store is a fake with the words "Apple Store" beneath the logo where there shouldn't be any.

"Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple," writes the blogger who goes by BirdAbroad.

The blogger managed to snap off a few pictures of the fake Apple store. It was hard to tell whether the products sold in the store were genuine, according to the blogger.

A spokeswoman for Apple China has declined to comment when asked by AFP.

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