Online business helps steel pipe manufacturer increase export turnover by nearly 7 times in 2 years

Member: Mr. Sun
Company: Yancheng Steel Tube Co., Ltd.


Country: [China]
Industry: Minerals&Metallurgy
Products: Cold drawn seamless steel pipes, seamless steel pipe, steel pipe, seamless steel tube, Flat steel bar, Galvanized Steel Pipe, precision tube

Established in 1992, Yancheng Steel Tube Co., Ltd is a specialist manufacturer of carbon seamless steel pipes with over twenty years of experience in China. In October 2004, to compete in the weak domestic steel pipe market, we joined Alibaba.com’s China marketplace as a TrustPass member to expand domestic sales. In a short time, we received an inquiry from a trading company in Jinan asking for 600MT seamless pipes for export to India. This was the first time we had sold products for export purposes and the knockdown price was much higher than the domestic market price. After this order an idea came to my mind: why don’t we export our pipes directly by ourselves?

After consulting with Alibaba.com, in May 2005, we signed up with Alibaba.com’s international marketplace as a Gold Supplier to start our adventures in the overseas market. Expert related talents were gathered and an overseas sales department was established. Through our team’s hard work, in the last three years, our company has achieved outstanding developments. The export turnover in 2006 was US $6,400,000 and it tripled to US$ 23,000,000 in 2007. In 2008 this figure came up to US $ 44,000,000. We have to admit that without Alibaba.com, this would not be our story.

So far we have expanded our business into a majority of areas including Singapore, South Korea, France, Italy and Pakistan, and we have agents in Saudi Arab and India. Of our exports, the Indian market plays an important role. It is acknowledged that India is a huge market with great potential for exporting seamless pipe. After five years’ hard work in the Indian market, our annual sales to India have seen exponential growth year by year. The annual export amount has increased from 4,000MT in 2006 to 15,000MT in 2008.

Regarding doing business with Indian clients we would like to share our experience that patience and consideration are most important. We pay more attention to our Indian clients even when the trial order is of a small quantity with many specifications which would normally be neglected by other competitors. For the Indian clients who visit our company, we will check and study their eating and living habits beforehand and make considerate arrangements during their visit. On the guarantee of good product quality with considerate service, our clients are quite happy to maintain a long term business relationship with us.

The success of the export business has greatly promoted our company’s development. In 2007, we adjusted our product structure and had a new production line for pipeline tubing. At the same time we made active applications to the American Petroleum Institute and succeeded in acquiring API5L and API5CT certificates in January 2008, which greatly helped to promote our exploration into European and American markets.