“Stroy-trade” is about furniture

There are cases when the name of the company ceases to partially, or even completely, correspond to its essence. Most often due to the fact that in the process of development it changes the profile of activity, and the name remains unchanged. Without resorting to rebranding for simple reasons: in the market, this name is already firmly established, is authoritative and recognizable. A similar story with the Kharkiv company “Stroy-Trade”, which specializes in online sales of materials and accessories for furniture production.

Its founder and current leader, Serhiy Kasvinov, an engineer by education and a food specialty, as it often happens, has never worked. But because an engineer is a universal profession and even how according to Sergei, the state of mind, it can be “applied” to any activity. He worked as a sales manager, later became a co-owner of a company similar to his current – in the sale of materials, mainly for the construction industry. Subsequently, his vision of the company’s development prospects diverged from the position of a partner – he decided to form his own business structure and develop it according to his own understanding of prospects. So he started to steer it more and more steeply in the furniture industry, and now “Stroy-Trade” makes 85 percent of sales in the furniture market. Sells to furniture plate materials, edges and films of PVC and glues for them, an artificial stone, furniture accessories. There are eleven groups of goods in the range.

The sale of board materials, and especially plywood, has been a commodity priority since the beginning of the company’s establishment, and remains so. Stroy-Trade does not have traders for whom the goal is to sell as much as possible. The position is different: to sell as profitably as possible for the client. Therefore, there are cases, as Sergei said, when, realizing that to meet the needs of the client would be more suitable other material, managers advise to use it, even if it is purchased from another company. “Anything to sell your product to the buyer is a one-time benefit,” said the head of Stroy-Trade, “which will not benefit the company, but rather damage its reputation, because it will not add regular customers, but take them away.”

Stroy-Trade employs real experts in plywood products. Here not only its wide range from various manufacturers, here not only the client will receive comprehensive and deep information about it, consultative technological councils, but also will offer it here services in cutting and cutting of plate materials, their veneering and edging.

As for plywood products, the head of the company plans to actively increase its sales for other possible needs, consumers of other industries, where this excellent material can be best served – in particular, in addition to the traditional construction industry, transporters, beekeepers, food. Serhiy Kasvinov notes that the expansion of furniture production of plywood has recently become noticeable. Manufacturers of tennis tables began to buy it. In order to emphasize the universal, and not only the furniture production application of plywood, this product position was singled out from other assortment materials, now it is sold by a separate site.

One of the priority directions of the company’s development is to expand the partnership with the producers of the materials that Stroy-Trade sells. The number of companies whose official sales representatives are Serhiy Kasvinov’s company will definitely increase – good preconditions for this are already emerging. Having relied on the furniture market, having a majority of furniture in its customer base and striving to increase their number, Stroy-Trade could not avoid the Ukrainian Association of Furniture Manufacturers. Her arrival at the ranks of UAFM was a logical step in the further development of the company. “We have a purely pragmatic interest in this membership,” Kasvinov admits, “but other benefits from UAFM membership are also important for us: in particular, it adds weight to the company’s image.” Corporate solidarity, mutual benefit, exchange of experience are also important. Like most new companies in the Association, we are attracted by the opportunities to learn effective management techniques, the art of sales, in which UAFM is systematized and qualified and in most cases altruistically promotes its members. With the Association, the company felt like a real participant in the development of the domestic furniture market. “