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Thirty years of selling steel by weight and by word
SS Traders is a family-run steel and iron trading house in Karachi. We started small, stayed in the same trade, and built a customer list out of people who came back because the second order went as smoothly as the first.
It started with one line of business and a lot of walking.
SS Traders began the way most Karachi steel businesses begin — one man, one product line, and a great deal of time spent on foot between the market and the godowns. There was no catalogue. There was a notebook, a set of relationships, and a reputation that had to be earned one delivery at a time.
Three decades later the range covers most of what a builder or fabricator in Pakistan needs: deformed bars, plates and sheets, hot and cold rolled coil, galvanised roofing, pipes, purlin, cable tray and slit strip. The notebook has become a stock register. The relationships are still the business.
The buyers widened along with the range. Contractors and fabricators were always the core, but a good share of what leaves the floor now goes to home appliance makers — cold rolled and galvanised sheet for fans, geysers, ovens, coolers and cabinet work — along with roofing contractors, auto workshops, furniture and interior fitters, engineering factories and hardware dealers up-country.
What we have deliberately not changed is the size of the promise. We do not quote a rate we cannot hold. We do not accept an order we cannot fill. And we would rather lose a sale than send a buyer material that does not match what is written on the challan — because in this trade, that is the only mistake nobody forgets.
“In steel you are only as good as your last load. Thirty years is just a lot of last loads that went out right.”
Chief Executive Officer
What we are, plainly
A trading house, not a mill. That means our value is in sourcing, stock and honesty about what is available — not in pretending we manufacture what we sell.
- Karachi based
- Family owned
- Nationwide dispatch
- Local & imported
To keep Pakistan’s builders, fabricators and factories supplied with honest steel — the grade that was ordered, the weight that was paid for, on the day it was promised.
It is not a grand mission, and we do not pretend otherwise. But in a market where short weight and quiet substitutions are common enough that buyers expect them, doing the ordinary thing reliably turns out to be the whole business.
Honesty is cheaper
A returned load costs more than a lost sale. We would rather tell you no than tell you what you want to hear.
Small buyers count
The contractor buying four sheets today is often the one buying forty tons in three years. We answer both the same way.
What we hold ourselves to
Written down so you can hold us to them too. These are the things we measure ourselves against, not aspirations pinned to a wall.
Quote from real stock
Price what is on the floor. If we have to arrange it, we say so up front and give a realistic date instead of an optimistic one.
Answer the same day
Every enquiry that comes in during working hours gets a reply before the day closes — even if the reply is that we cannot help.
Ship what was ordered
Grade, size and weight on the challan match what goes on the truck. No quiet substitutions, no rounding in our favour.
Keep delivery predictable
Karachi loads move same or next day where stock allows. Up-country dispatch is quoted with a date we intend to keep.
Widen the range, not the story
Add product lines when we can genuinely stock and support them. We would rather carry forty lines well than claim four hundred.
Explain, don’t upsell
If a cheaper grade does the job, we will tell you. Advice that costs us a little today is what keeps the account for a decade.
How the business grew
No single moment turned SS Traders into what it is. It grew the way most Karachi steel businesses grow — one line at a time, on the back of buyers who came back.
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The first years
One man and one product line
A notebook, a set of relationships, and a great deal of walking between the market and the godowns. No catalogue, and a reputation earned one delivery at a time.
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Growing the range
From bars to the full list
Buyers who came for sariya started asking for plate, then coil, then sheet. Rather than send them elsewhere, the floor grew to hold it. The notebook became a stock register.
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Beyond Karachi
Loading for the whole country
Dispatch to Lahore, Multan, Islamabad and the smaller towns in between — mixed loads made up from one floor so a dealer up-country is not chasing four suppliers.
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The second generation
Ali Hayat joins the business
Day-to-day operations, stock and customer accounts pass to the next generation while the way of quoting stays exactly as it was.
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Today
Thirteen product families, one floor
Bars, flats, coils, sheets, pipes, hollow sections and structural steel — and, more and more, galvanised sections for solar mounting across Sindh and Punjab.
The floor behind the rate
A rate is only as good as what stands behind it. This is what a quote from us is backed by.
Covered storage
Stock held under cover and racked by size and grade, so material is not rusting in the open while it waits for an order.
Weighbridge
Every load crosses the bridge before it leaves. The figure on the bridge is the figure written on the challan — no estimates, no rounding up.
Cutting to size
Shearing and gas cutting on most sections, quoted with the material rather than added afterwards as an extra line.
Dispatch
From a single bundle on a pickup to a full trailer up-country, with freight quoted separately so you can see material and transport apart.
Thirty years, same floor
The people, the paperwork and the pipe — the parts of a steel trade that never show up in a price list.
The people behind the name
Two people, both reachable. There is no layer between you and the person who decides.
Shahid Hayat
Chief Executive Officer
Founder of SS Traders and the reason it exists. Three decades in the Karachi steel market have given him a sense for where material is, what it should cost, and which supplier will actually deliver on a promise. Handles sourcing, mill relationships and pricing.
021-32778544 Sourcing · pricing · mill relationships
Ali Hayat
Director
Runs the operation day to day — stock, dispatch, accounts and customer service. He brought the business onto WhatsApp and made same-day quoting the standard rather than the exception. Most likely the person who replies to your message.
0334 8398777 Stock · dispatch · day-to-day accounts
What we quote against
If a drawing calls for a grade, that is the grade that gets loaded. Substituting down is not a saving, and it is not something we will do quietly.
Where a mill test certificate comes with the material, we pass it on. Ask for it with the enquiry and it travels with the challan.
Based in Karachi. Loading for the whole country.
Karachi is where the port is, where the mills sell, and where the market sets the rate — which is why we have never moved. But steel is heavy, not immobile. Material leaves here for sites and workshops across Pakistan every week.
- Karachi & Sindh Same or next-day delivery on stocked items, including Hyderabad and Sukkur.
- Punjab Regular dispatch to Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Rawalpindi.
- KP, Balochistan & north Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad served on planned loads; freight quoted with the material.
A note on freight
We quote material and freight separately, and we tell you which is which. Bundling them into one figure makes it impossible for you to check whether you are being charged fairly for either — so we do not do it.
If you have your own transporter, that is completely fine. Plenty of our regular buyers send their own truck and take material ex-godown.
Ask about delivery to your cityWhere the steel comes from
Local mills for the bulk of it, direct import where the grade or the price makes that the better answer.
Local mills
Deformed bar, sections and most galvanised sheet come from Pakistani mills. Short lead times, and a relationship long enough that a problem gets fixed by phone.
Direct import
Coil, wide plate and the heavier sections where the local market is thin. Longer lead time, quoted honestly, and never presented as ex-stock when it is not.
The open market
For odd sizes and urgent gaps. We would rather source it from the market at a thin margin than tell a regular buyer to go elsewhere.
Thirty years of this. Let’s start with one order.
Send a size, a grade and a tonnage. You will get a straight answer, whichever way it goes.