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Russian Steel Giants Plan to Go Online With European Sales

  • NLMK, Severstal to offer online sales in Europe in 2020
  • European steel industry lags China, Russia in e-commerce
Steel Manufacture At Severstal PJCS's Cherepovets Steel Mill
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

As European steel demand comes under growing pressure, two big suppliers to the bloc are betting on online stores to help attract new clients.

It may not sound like a groundbreaking plan -- Internet shoppers around the world can already order anything from a prefabricated house to a human skull -- yet European steel buyers still make most purchases the same way as they have for decades. That contrasts with steel industries in Russia and China, where e-commerce has developed more rapidly.