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Finance for ecommerce

If you do business online, there are plenty of alternative finance platforms available — it all depends on your business circumstances. Here's a guide to business loans and finance for ecommerce firms.

What can I get with finance for ecommerce?

  • Fast growth e.g. employing more staff or purchasing brand new equipment
  • Stock purchases
  • General cash flow obligations such as wages, tax and rents
  • Invest in your digital marketing and online presence – as you well know, the 'front door' to your shop!

Fast business loans

Being in a rapidly changing marketplace, your business needs to take advantage of new opportunities as soon as they emerge. Fast business loans can be obtained from lenders who have experience in the online market, and will look at your credit score and trading history to give an instant decision. These lenders will be giving you a credit line to access on the same day as your application.

Finance for growth

Whether you trade on eBay, Magento, Amazon or an equivalent service, lenders’ systems can integrate to analyse your online accounts (such as PayPal or cloud accounting software) to determine trends and your affordability immediately. It’s never been easier to apply for funding because the information is so easily accessible to lenders. Some lenders will even assess customer reviews to tell them all they need to know about your business, and base decisions on that.

Working capital finance

Like every business, you still need the reserve cash to buy more stock and meet your obligations such as wages, tax and other bills. Having a line of credit to access when you need – and that you pay for only when you use it – allows you to operate at a high level at no detriment to the business.

If you give credit to your customers so they are able to pay you later, your options could even include new advances in invoice finance that can be done online. The flexibility with these services is great for managing your working capital requirements, and they can be used for individual invoices, a handful, or the whole sales ledger.

Trade finance

If you import goods from abroad, we can assess your eligibility for trade finance, where you can access finance for stock purchases based on the credit profile of businesses in your supply chain. As well as allowing your business to operate at much higher levels, this builds better partnerships between the links in your supply chain.

As you can see, there’s a wide range of finance options available to ecommerce businesses, so it’s important that you understand which options best fit your needs.

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