NLMK teams with distributors to boost online store variety

Russia’s NLMK has signed partnership agreements with two of Russia’s major steel distribution companies, Metallservis and SPK (Stalepromyshlennaya Kompania), whose combined steel sales last year totaled 4.3 million mt, NLMK reported Wednesday.

The partnership gives the distributors access to NLMK’s online steel shop https://nlmk.shop/ where — for a small commission — they can market those products which complement NLMK’s own range, NLMK’s president Grigory Fedorishin told journalists.

As a result of the partnership, the steel assortment available through NLMK’s online shop will expand to 20,000 products, in preliminary estimates. The company launched the online shop in March 2018. In the first half, its sales doubled year on year to 36,000 mt.

Metallservis and SPK will also benefit from partaking in NLMK’s marketing resources and IT-expertise. In exchange, NLMK will use the firms’ logistic services and storage capacities, which together with NLMK’s own sites will comprise 70 warehouses across Russia.

NLMK’s announcement came two weeks after Severstal reported it teamed up with Evraz Metall Inprom (a distributor owned by Russian fellow steelmaker Evraz) to test joint sales through Severstal’s online store, as Platts reported in mid-July.

— Ekaterina Bouckley