Stainless Sales Corporation

Stainless Sales Corporation is an ISO/TS-registered, third generation family-owned stainless steel supplier that is nationally recognized for superior service and quality.By combining expertise with extensive resources, Stainless Sales Corporation is able to offer its customers unrivalled response time and competitive prices.

Stainless Sales has been building on their expertise since 1946, when it was founded in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Not long into their run, they opened a Midwest distribution center and sales office in Chicago. In 1982, to centralize their service throughout North America, the company closed their East Coast operations and concentrated their efforts through their current facility in Chicago.

President, Brad Hite, joined the company in May 2009 to take on a leadership role in sales and management. He was drawn to the company for its history of supplying high quality stainless steel across the United States and Mexico. “It’s always a pleasure to come work for someone with that type of reputation,” he says. “It means there is a lot of potential for growth.”

Unlike many of their competitors, Stainless Sales Corporation is a mid-sized and family-owned company. As a result, decisions are made quicker and more efficiently – not only from Hite, but those below him as well. Having come from a more bureaucratic healthcare company, he finds that refreshing.

Everyone’s a customer

At Stainless Sales Corporation, “almost everybody is a customer,” says Hite. Their steel goes into products as diverse as an apple corer to the catalytic converters on heavy trucks. Stainless Sales’ customer base is incredibly varied, and also includes companies in the aerospace, construction, defence, electrical HVAC, medical, and petrochemical, oil & gas industries.

Their ability to provide prime, defect-free material – material that is also non-corrosive, fire-resistant and environmentally friendly – makes Stainless Sales an excellent resource to manufacturers of all shapes and sizes.

Within the stainless steel industry, Stainless Sales also stands apart due to their superior customer service. A significant number of mid-sized service centers in the industry get “gobbled up” by private equity firms or large privately and publicly-held steel conglomerates, Hite says.  As a mid-size family-owned business, however, Stainless Sales is able to provide more personalized and superior customer service.

“If a customer asks us for something special, we go the extra mile to get it for them and provide them a greater depth of product,” Hite says. “Because of our size, we’re able to provide excellent price and speed.”

“If the phone rings and they need something shipped in a day or two, we’re able to break schedule and accommodate those requests,” he added.

The company employs 55 staff – all of whom enjoy an open work environment based on mutual respect. A good indicator of their strong employee relations is the longevity of their staff – some who’ve been employed with the company for more than 25 years. “It’s an open door policy,” Hite says. “You can walk 20 feet and you’re either talking to the owner or the president, sales manager or operations manager where you can get an answer.”

At the forefront

Staying at the forefront of technology has long been one of Stainless Sales Corporation’s central priorities. With their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, they are able to provide quick and constant communication among staff and customers – regardless of geographic location – and effectively track trends in the market. They are committed to ensuring their software is top of the line, Hite says, and are constantly on the lookout for improvements.

That dedication to system upgrades has led Stainless Sales to staggering growth, enabling them to stay ahead of the competition and better serve customers. They’ve also revamped their website based on analytics, collecting significant data on users accessing the site and how they use it. This led to them making a mobile-accessible site for smartphone users.

“You will actually have a proportionately correct version of our website at your fingertips,” says Hite.

Stainless Sales Corporation also seeks to stay at the forefront of products and services. Currently, they are looking at expanding their product line to capture a larger share of the market. For example, they want to incorporate more “long products” – angled, flat and round.

In addition, the company recently leased a new large-coiled storage facility to act as a central hub and second location in Chicago to store raw materials. “By doing that, it’s freed up to 30 to 40 percent of our floor space in our main facility. We’re now looking at expanding our services,” he says.

Looking ahead to the longer term, the goal of Stainless Sales is to double their pounds shipped over the next five years. “We have great expectations for the company.”

The company’s biggest priority, however, is maintaining their high standard of customer service. Regardless of the client, be it a big corporation or small business, Hite says each is serviced respectfully, efficiently and responsively.

“We really value the relationships we have with our existing customers,” Hite says. “A lot of our customers have known us the entire time we’ve been in business. Once we get a customer, they don’t tend to go anywhere else.”