Independent supermarkets and convenience
High volume, thin margins, constant restocking. Supplier terms decide everything. A good price on a large order is worth taking and needs cash on the day.
SectorsRetail
Retail
Stock costs money before it earns any.
Supermarkets, restaurants and e-commerce share one problem in different shapes: you pay for the stock, then you sell it, and the gap between the two decides how much room the business has.
140+ retail deals recorded.
Stock paid forOn supplier terms, or up front for the discount
Stock sittingThe working capital is in the stock
Stock soldThe money comes back
Three different businesses
Restaurants and hospitality
Costs weekly, revenue daily. A quiet fortnight moves through the accounts immediately. Refurbishment, kitchen equipment and a second site are the usual reasons for real capital.
E-commerce
Containers. Stock is ordered and paid for months before it sells, often from overseas, and the working capital sits in transit. Peak season is funded well before peak season arrives.
This sector is marketed to harder than any other, and the product pushed hardest is the merchant cash advance.
On merchant cash advances
The reason is that retail and e-commerce run all their revenue through a card acquirer in real time, which makes the data rich and easy to underwrite, so eligibility is generous and approval is fast.
It has its place: repayment flexes with takings, which suits genuinely unpredictable revenue. But it is often the wrong structure, sold to businesses that could have had a term facility at a fraction of the cost. Taking a second advance to clear the first is not unusual, and by then the options have narrowed.
If an advance is right, we will arrange one. Often it is not, and a business that has been on one for a while is usually better off moving to something with a fixed cost and an end date.
What it gets used for
Stock
Bought ahead of a season, not halfway through it.
Supplier discounts
Taking one that requires payment up front.
Premises and equipment
A refit, new equipment, or a second site.
Timing
Smoothing the gap between paying for stock and selling it, without running the business account permanently negative.
If you are on an advance and it no longer makes sense, that is worth a conversation before the next one.
What we need
Six months of business bank statements. For card-heavy businesses the statements show the takings pattern directly, and that is what any lending partner underwrites against.
Card-heavy trading reads badly unless someone looks closely. Send the statements and we will.