Steelgaard Trading
Buy direct from the factory.
Stop paying the markup.
Steelgaard Trading sources direct from European factories for Nordic e-commerce brands. You pay factory price plus seven percent — not the 25–40% your Alibaba trading company is quietly adding on top.
By invitation or qualified inquiry
The Problem
Three middlemen stand between you and the factory.
Most Nordic e-commerce brands don’t buy direct. They buy from Alibaba trading companies, European distributors, or white-label resellers who call themselves “the manufacturer.” Each layer adds 10–15% to your landed cost.
You never see the markup. You never meet the factory. You never know which supplier you’re really buying from, so when quality fails or lead times slip, you have no leverage and no one to call.
We exist because this is fixable, and almost nobody fixes it.
How We Work
Four things we do better than your current supplier.
Source the factory directly
We scan Alibaba, 1688, Made-in-China, and European wholesale directories to find the actual factory — not the trading company reselling their product at a premium.
Negotiate with repeat-buyer leverage
You order once. We negotiate across dozens of orders per year. Factories price us accordingly — and you inherit that pricing on your first order.
Inspect before it ships
Third-party QC on every order before the factory gets paid. We catch the issues that turn into returns, refunds, and reviews that tank your store rating.
Handle the boring part
Freight booking, customs paperwork, dispute resolution. You get a shipping notification. We deal with the factory, the forwarder, and the broker.
Who We Work With
Serious Nordic brands that hold inventory.
- DTC brands with their own SKUs
- Swedish and Nordic direct-to-consumer brands shipping their own designed products. Apparel, home, accessories, beauty tools, outdoor.
- Multi-location retailers
- Chains with 3–50 physical stores buying packaging, fixtures, uniforms, or branded consumables at volume.
- Private-label Amazon FBA operators
- Nordic sellers running their own brand SKUs on Amazon Europe who want to stop sourcing blind on Alibaba.
- B2B product brands
- Hospitality, gym, salon, and professional-supply companies buying branded equipment and consumables in quantity.
We don’t work with dropshippers, pure resellers, or Shopify stores doing fewer than 20 orders per month. The sourcing math doesn’t work at that volume — for you or for us.
The Terms
We carry the risk on your first deal.
Seven percent commission
On the factory-invoiced value of your order. Fifty percent at PO, fifty percent on delivery.
Quality guarantee on deal #1
If QC fails on your first order with us, you pay zero commission. We eat the sourcing work. You carry no downside on the first transaction.
No retainers, no minimums
One-off order, one commission. No monthly fee, no contract, no volume commitment. Use us when it saves you money. Stop when it doesn't.
Built on the rails you already trust
We exist because the markup is fixable, and almost nobody fixes it.
Make an Inquiry
Tell us what you’re sourcing.
If we can beat your landed cost by fifteen percent or more after our fee, we’ll show you the factories. If we can’t, we’ll tell you straight. We review every inquiry personally.