Construction Informer

Counterfeit electrical products now account for a drain on the U.S. economy of as much as $20 billion, according to a press release put out by the magazines, Electrical Contractor and TED. So on April 14 at noon EDT the two are hosting a one-hour-long webinar on the topic of counterfeit electrical products. You can register here.

The idea is that there are fake electrical items entering the country. These are things that electricians work with and eventually property owners interact with. The list includes circuit breakers and lighting fixtures. The claim is that counterfeit items are not built to the same standards as those built by firms like Square D, Eaton, Siemens and the like, and they are not U.L. Certified. Therefore they pose a threat to not only the installers, but the property owners as well. They also violate intellectual property rights in many cases.

It’s hard to argue with any of that as long as it is relatively true and represents the facts reasonably well. And even if it isn’t totally true, in those instances where it is accurate then it makes no difference how it is spun. Counterfeit electrical building supplies pose risks.

One measure of the amount of counterfeit items flowing into the country is the amount of items being seized by customs agents at the borders, and by others elsewhere, as counterfeits. According to statistics presented by the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) electrical components used in building were not in the top 10 most-seized commodities for 2007, even though a related site Anti-Counterfeit Products Initiative (ACPI), endorsed by NAED, NECA, NEMA and UL, claims they were and that they were ranked number three in the top ten in 2007.

The discrepancy may have something to do with the names given to the various categories of counterfeit products. The customs report cited by the IACC refers to “consumer electronics” being number three in 2007 and defines them as cell phones and accessories, radios, power strips, electrical tools and appliances. No mention of circuit breakers and the other kinds of things that has the electrical industry riled. When ACPI refers to the report statistics for that same year it calls the items “electrical products,” and names things like power adapters, batteries, extension cords, circuit breakers and lighting products.

Because of errors, or spin like this it is difficult to get a fix on just how big a problem this really is for the building industry. Without statistics that reliably note the amount of counterfeit electrical building products that are originating here, or coming into the country, people may be over reacting to something that just may require a bit more diligence on the parts of electrical contractors when they are selecting components. If a contractor is going to install materials supplied by the customer then perhaps they should think twice about that. 

Interestingly, the leader by far when it comes to counterfeit products is footwear, at 40 percent of the total seized. Wearing apparel comes in the next highest at 14 percent and the other eight are all in the single digits ranging from eight to one percent of the total seized.

Ultimately though, the uphill battle that comes into play when trying to fight counterfeit products is public attitudes about them. A 2005 survey, again reported by IACC, found that 59 percent of consumers were purchasing knock offs, 96 percent said price was the reason, and 90 percent of them said knowing someone had purchased counterfeit products would not change their opinion of them. If all of the uproar over counterfeit electrical building products is really just about foreign competition, then the industry might spend its energy more productively by finding ways to deliver domestic products at prices that will make buyers think twice about buying somewhere else. After all, competition was practically invented here and until recently it has been the standard by which U.S. companies have dominated markets across the globe.