How a 20-Year-Old Trailer Manufacturer Found a Way Into Vietnam Without Winning on Price
Kim Eng Seng Engineering & Trading couldn't beat Vietnam's trailer market on price. Chinese manufacturers were shipping trailers overland into the country at a cost point Kim Eng Seng, a Singapore-based manufacturer with over 20 years in the business, simply couldn't match. Facing a declining domestic market, the company needed a way into Vietnam that didn't depend on being the cheapest option on the table — and that's the real question most traditional manufacturers run into the moment they try to export: if you can't win on price, what do you win on?
Curt & Co was engaged to answer exactly that. The mandate: get Kim Eng Seng into Vietnam's trailer market in a way that didn't require competing head-on with lower-cost imports.
Why We Started With the Competition, Not the Product
Before positioning Kim Eng Seng as anything, Curt & Co needed to understand what buyers in Vietnam were actually comparing it against. That meant mapping competitor trailers already in the market, their pricing, and the prevailing supply chain — most trailers were arriving overland from China. This research made the pricing gap concrete rather than assumed, and it confirmed that a straight price fight wasn't a viable entry strategy. It also surfaced where the real opening was: not in undercutting the incumbents, but in the gap between cheap, generic supply and buyers who actually needed guidance on what they were buying.
Why We Positioned Kim Eng Seng as an Advisor, Not Just a Vendor
This is the pivot at the center of the engagement. Rather than compete purely as a trailer supplier, Curt & Co repositioned Kim Eng Seng around its two decades of manufacturing expertise — as both a supplier and an industry advisor to Vietnamese industrial buyers. The comparison the team used internally: an "IKEA of trailer manufacturers" — low-cost, fast-turnaround, but backed by real product knowledge, not just a price tag. For a hardware and manufacturing brand, credibility is often the actual product being sold to a new market, and this repositioning was designed to build that credibility directly with buyers rather than compete purely on unit cost.
Why We Targeted Industrial Buyers Directly, Not Distributors First
In parallel, Curt & Co identified and researched Vietnamese industrial companies that needed high-quality, cost-effective trailers as end users — rather than routing the entire effort through a generic distributor search. Targeted communications built around Kim Eng Seng's low-cost, fast-turnaround manufacturing capabilities were used to open conversations with these buyers directly, reinforcing the advisor positioning established above.
Outcomes
A detailed, documented understanding of the competitive and pricing landscape for trailers in Vietnam, including the prevailing China-overland supply model
Identification of Vietnamese industrial companies as qualified buyer targets
Business matching between Kim Eng Seng and potential buyers in Vietnam
The takeaway: when you can't win on price in a new market, the fastest path in is often to sell your expertise before you sell your product.
If you're a manufacturer weighing an export market where cost isn't your advantage, we'd be glad to talk through how a similar positioning shift might work for you.
About Us
Curt & Co Pte Ltd is a consulting company started amongst a group of business owners who were looking for a consulting company themselves for advice !
Our offices and our focus markets are in Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia. With clients ranging from 1 man operating SMEs to listed companies, we are proud to have helped our clients across different industries gain market entry into the South East Asian region.
Contact us at marcus@curtconsult.com if you want to talk!
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