Challenging counterfeits

The company is focusing on both retail outlets and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online platforms, such as eBay, HC360, Tokopedia, Facebook Marketplace and Shopee. Their aim is to target the biggest sellers of low quality, counterfeit drills using the Dormer name.

Dormer Pramet is seeing replica items being made available across South East Asia, with around 14,750 products seized and destroyed at point of export by customs in one week alone during July 2019.

They believe these tools are being manufactured by several replica businesses, which are being shipped out to unofficial dealers around the world. These tools then make their way down the supply chain to the end user.

In a recent analysis, the company identified approximately 500 online sale listings globally to be investigated and potentially removed, targeting specific countries that contained the most counterfeit infringements. This equated to more than 7,500 products with a black-market value of approximately 22,000 USD.

Around ten percent of those listings were from the Philippines. Dormer Pramet is actively policing online marketplaces in the country to remove adverts of counterfeit products. In one single week, the company took down 50 listings on Facebook marketplace alone.

Dormer Pramet is now working with its official distributors in the Philippines, along with custom officials, trade organizations and eCommerce platforms, to challenge against counterfeit manufacturers and sellers.

To help identify and destroy counterfeit cutting tools across South East Asia, Dormer Pramet has set up an email address for people to report sellers who are offering replica items - genuine@dormerpramet.com

John Eustace, export director for Dormer Pramet International, said: “Our Dormer brand has built a reputation for delivering high quality, fit-for-purpose tooling, over the last 100 years. This trust of our brand is being damaged across South East Asia by people selling counterfeit Dormer items.

“Unfortunately, we are seeing an increasing number of counterfeit tools enter the market and so we are ramping up our efforts against it. Selling replica items is highly illegal and means customers pay above market price for what is a sub-standard and potentially dangerous product. 

“These drills are manufactured in cheaper, less professional environments and the quality is significantly lower. In most cases the counterfeits drills are roll forged, whereas ours are flute ground drills and have higher accuracy in performance.

“A badly made drill can have devasting consequences for the end-user, such as breakage during an application. Not only is this incredibly dangerous when hand-drilling, but the performance and quality of the end-product is much lower. In a worst-case scenario, the component might be irreversibly damaged resulting in it being scrapped.

“It not only puts employees at risk, but it damages the local economy by producing sub-standard component parts. Also, it is taking business away from our official distributors in the Philippines, which together employ hundreds of people.

“As a company, we welcome honest competition in the marketplace and believe this drives consumer choice. However, we will always take strong action against any business selling counterfeit products to ensure customers can be guaranteed a genuine, quality product when they purchase goods bearing the Dormer name.”

Dormer Pramet work with five official importers of Dormer products into the Philippines, based in Manila, namely Cham Samco, Hap Suy Hardware, Lim Yee Wan Co., Panda Construction and United Far East.

Anyone who believes they have been sold a counterfeit Dormer drill should email the details to genuine@dormerpramet.com, referring to the product item, price and {store location or online listing} where they bought it from.