The stock is paid for long before it sells.
Shops, grocers, online stores and specialty retailers buy the season's inventory in advance, hold it, and sell it over months. The suppliers do not wait, and neither does the rent.
The problem
Retail runs on inventory bought ahead. Holiday stock is ordered in summer; spring lines are paid for in January. The money sits on the shelf until it turns, and a supplier with a minimum order does not care that it has not turned yet.
The busy weeks are very busy. Staffing up, a second register, a bigger ad budget, a pop-up: each has to be paid for before the sales it produces. Online stores add platform fees and paid traffic that are billed daily.
Card-heavy, daily revenue makes retail one of the trades funders read easily. It also makes revenue-based repayment a natural fit: the advance is repaid faster in December and slower in February.
- How you get paid
- Card and online sales daily; wholesale accounts on terms
- Where the gap is
- Inventory bought ahead of the season; staff and advertising before the sales
- What tends to fit
- A line of credit, revenue-based financing, consolidation
How we help
Inventory bought when it is cheapest
A line of credit funds the season's order at the supplier's price, and pays down as it sells.
Repayment that follows the register
A revenue-based advance takes a share of daily sales, so the busy season repays most of it.
One payment if there are already several
A store that took an advance a season ago, then another, gets them replaced with a single longer-term payment.
What usually fits
Which one, or which two, depends on the file. These are the ones we reach for first with retail and e-commerce.