Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2024-10-28 Origin: Site
On September 19, 2024, we departed from Terminal B in Moscow and arrived in St. Petersburg after a 45-minute flight. St. Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia, with an area of 1,439 square kilometers, of which the urban area is 606 square kilometers. It is a central municipality of Russia and the capital of Leningrad Oblast. St. Petersburg is also the central city of the northwest region of Russia, an important water and land transportation hub in Russia, and the northernmost city in the world with a population of over one million. It is also known as the "Northern Capital" of Russia. St. Petersburg occupies an important position in the Russian economy. It is a large comprehensive industrial city, often referred to as the most westernized city in Russia. It is Russia's window to Europe. Many foreign consulates, multinational companies, banks and other business bases are located in St. Petersburg. It is also an international city with highly developed science, technology and industry.
St. Petersburg has a mild continental climate influenced by the ocean. The average annual temperature is 5.2℃ and the annual precipitation is 585mm. The summer is mild, with an average temperature of 17.7℃ in the hottest month, July. The winter is cold, with an average temperature of minus 6.5℃ in winter and an average temperature of minus 8℃ in the coldest month, January. The snow period lasts for 132 days, and the freezing period is from mid-November to mid-to-late April of the following year.St. Petersburg is rich in hydropower, minerals, and biological resources;GDP per capita 35,700RMB
At 5:30 pm on September 19th, local time, we arrived at St. Petersburg Pulkovo Airport (LED for short). We landed at Terminal 1. The air ticket cost 490 yuan but did not include luggage allowance. We bought luggage allowance separately, which was almost the same price as the air ticket. St. Petersburg Airport is different from Moscow Airport. There is no Chinese, only Russian and English. The airport is not big, and it is very convenient to follow the signs. You can take a shuttle bus, subway, or taxi from the airport to the city. Because we arrived in the afternoon and had not applied for a subway card, we took a taxi to the reserved hotel. It took us more than an hour to walk for a 30-minute journey. It was the rush hour after get off work, and the airport exit was very congested.
After an hour, we arrived at the hotel where we were staying. The front desk could only speak a little English, but with the help of translation software, we checked in smoothly
The hotel has a great environment and has its own kitchen where you can cook. Because we were not familiar with the surrounding environment, we cooked instant noodles for the first meal.
All the electrical appliances in the room are Midea brand, which shows that Chinese brands still have a certain market share in the local area.
The next day, we started to visit customers. The subway is the main means of transportation for Russians, so we bought a 5-day subway ticket for 1,000 rubles, and a card-making fee of 80 rubles (refundable when the card is returned). The subway system here is more convenient than Moscow. Not only are there manual services, but there is also a Chinese interface, which makes it very convenient to buy tickets. In addition, the subway in St. Petersburg requires swiping cards when entering the station, but not when leaving the station. No matter how many stations you transfer, the price is the same; the subway here is very deep, and it is said that it was converted from an air-raid shelter. The elevator is also very high, and people who are afraid of heights will feel a little dizzy when sitting; the station is also in English and Russian. Although I can't understand it, the instructions are very in place. The name of the station is written outside each station, which is not the case in Moscow, so basically you will not get off at the wrong station, which is very convenient.
After the weekend break, we started visiting clients on Monday. The appointment with the first client was at 2 pm. We arrived two hours in advance for fear of emergencies. We also wandered around the surrounding markets. The buildings here are the same as those in Moscow, and not much different from those in China. Except for the European-style buildings in the city center, the surrounding areas are all ordinary medium- and high-rise buildings like this; the market is full of stalls set up by the elderly, selling vegetables, fruits, flowers, clothes, etc., which are similar to our morning market, and the prices are cheaper than those in supermarkets.
At 2 o'clock, we met with the customer smoothly. We also met this customer at the Shanghai Aquatech Exhibition in 2023. We took this opportunity to get to know them better. Their office address is in a shopping mall. They have warehouses in St. Petersburg and Moscow (according to feedback from many customers, Moscow is the main market, and many large customers will set up warehouses in Moscow). They are the agent of Dow reverse osmosis membrane. Because of sanctions, they have lost their supply channels. They are currently importing from Turkey and China. They currently sell Toray reverse osmosis membrane, Hyde Energy reverse osmosis membrane and Dow reverse osmosis membrane. The main nature is project factory and accessories wholesale, each accounting for about 50%. They were very enthusiastic about our visit. The purchasing manager (female) also attended the meeting and gave the required products. After communicating with the domestic team, the supply chain team gave a reply on the same day. We also got further feedback from customers. It is expected that a new list will be sent to us next week. I hope we can cooperate
The second customer is quite special. This customer mainly wholesales water treatment product accessories. Its main products include FRP tanks, control valves, reverse osmosis membranes, FRP reverse osmosis membrane shells, stainless steel reverse osmosis membranes, ultraviolet sterilizers and other products. They are particularly matched with us and are also new customers we met at the 2023 Shanghai Aquatech Exhibition. We contacted the customer before leaving China, but we didn't get in touch with him until we arrived in St. Petersburg. We wrote many emails, but there was no reply. At the same time, we asked the translator to help us make a phone call. The front desk said that we had to write an email first. Although there was no reply, we still went to visit the customer's company. Because there was an access card, we still couldn't get in. We had to call again and write emails. Fortunately, the front desk could speak English this time, and we met the customer smoothly. However, because we didn't make an appointment in advance, the boss and the purchase were not there. The customer declined our request to visit and could only communicate through emails. It was also very lucky to be able to contact the customer after more than a year of loss of contact. I believe that after this meeting, the subsequent email communication will be smoother.
The last customer was a very large local wholesaler. We contacted them twice, but the customer declined to visit us because we are a trading company and they only wanted to cooperate with the factory. But it didn’t matter, so we went to visit them coldly and found the customer’s nearest store through Yandex map. This brand is very well-known in the Russian market and is a household name. The product series is divided into household water purification series and commercial water purification series. The sales method is: wholesale, retail, offline stores, and online platforms. In the store, we saw many products that matched ours, such as: fiberglass tanks, control valves, high-pressure pumps, household series filter elements, melt-blown filter elements, compressible activated carbon filter elements, granular activated carbon filter elements, polypropylene wire-wound filter elements, etc. are all purchased locally because the cost is relatively low and imports are not suitable.
In addition, we also saw two-stage countertop filters, three-stage countertop filters, three-in-one filter elements, threaded reverse osmosis water purifiers, Korean quick-connect reverse osmosis water purifiers, 3.2G plastic pressure barrels, gourmet gooseneck stainless steel faucets, brass faucets, stainless steel filter bottles of different sizes, household reverse osmosis accessories, ion exchange resins, 600-800 gallon commercial water purifiers, small reverse osmosis equipment, etc.
The local water quality contains iron and manganese, so the customer's technical team mixed their own filter media for removing iron and manganese, which was very popular.
With the help of the store sales, we met the purchasing manager again. The customer still kept saying that we had no cooperation opportunities and that you were a trading company. We also explained the purpose of the visit, which was mainly to learn and understand the market. After communication, we learned that the local water treatment market in St. Petersburg is not large and very scattered. Many large companies have offices in Moscow. It is predicted that St. Petersburg's water treatment will only account for 1/5 of the Russian treatment market. The payment issue is also their main problem. At present, the payment fee for third-party payments from third-party countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is 2.5-13%. They also complained that Chinese factories require deposits. For them, the production of goods takes 1 month, the transportation takes 2 months, and it takes almost 5 months to receive the goods. Some customers will sell on credit, and it will take about 8.5 months to recover the funds after the sale, which puts a lot of pressure on funds. In addition, the current handling fee is very high, and he is not sure how to operate the business with China in the future. He hopes that the payment will improve. Because the technology is not there, no valuable information about the local water quality has been obtained. In the future, we must keep following up, convey value, and slowly influence customers.
After three days of visiting, our trip in St. Petersburg ended. We returned home on the evening of the 25th. Although there is no Chinese at the St. Petersburg airport, there is a green channel for Chinese people and there is no need to queue. When leaving the country, you need to submit your entry visa on arrival to the customs, and you will be released normally after verification.
So far, our trip to Russia has ended successfully. We hope that our customer visit this time can provide reference experience and cooperation basis for next year's visiting team.
content is empty!