Customer financing is something to consider when you want to grow your business and accommodate customers who need more payment flexibility. It can help individuals or businesses with limited cash or credit cards to make purchases from you. Customer financing is designed to convert a browser into a buyer at the point of sale if they might not be able to purchase outright.

With customer financing, an individual or a business enrolls in a program where they can pay installments of the full payment over time. We’ll dive into the benefits of offering customer financing and some things you should consider.

There are numerous ways to make customer financing work for you as a small business. Here are some best practices:

• Let your customers know about your financing option.
• Advertise it in cart as well as elsewhere.
• Use it as an upsell or tangential service offering for your existing customers who might benefit from it, especially B2B customers who make repeat or bulk purchases through global trade, trade finance and letters of credit who might benefit from it.

It’s important to advertise financing options that you offer, as they can turn potential buyers who are researching and weighing their options into customers, especially when it comes to bulk orders or trade transactions especially if this is the first time they have come across your business or purchased from you.

The Process:

1. The customer applies for financing either within cart or through a different process with a financing platform. Depending on what financing provider or system you use, this process might look slightly different (especially for export financing with international buyers). Generally, your customer doesn’t apply for financing directly through you, but instead through a third party.
2. The customer gets approved for financing. Your customer will know within a few minutes if they are approved or rejected for financing, so they can complete their purchase. Approval is determined by the bank or exporter bank who determines the credit or supply chain finance terms. From there, they extend a line of credit with payment options just like a rewards card or secured card. Customers also get offered promotional rates like 0% interest or other promotions your provider might offer.
3. The customer pays for the order and receives the order while committing to make monthly payments.

Providing in-cart financing for your B2B buyers can allow you to stand out amongst your ecommerce competitors, and can allow your buyer to make quicker and easier purchases. It’s important to make sure you’re implementing something that your customers want, and that you can afford.

Here are some things to consider before implementing.

• Costs: A financing company will typically charge merchants in one of a few ways. It might be free if the program uses or is integrated into your POS (point of sale) system or your ecommerce platform, but it also might charge business owners a percentage of each transaction that is financed (generally a very small percentage). This amount would be deducted from the purchase. Finally, some providers will charge a flat rate on a monthly basis (or different time interval based on the type of business) which covers an unlimited number of customer financing applications.
• Customers: Do your customers and products qualify for or need financing? As a B2B business, it is likely that the volume and value of shipments would qualify for and buyers would appreciate the opportunity to finance. Customers need to have good credit scores with a history of paying back invoices and and no negative credit events.
• Implementation: As a business, regardless of size, you want a solution that is easy to implement and maintain for your customers.

Inxeption will be offering in-cart financing for your B2B customers, directly in the Inxeption Cart. Inxeption is a secure and scalable platform that brings business the ease of consumer e-commerce. From one digital dashboard, drive sales, manage your supply chain, and realize cost savings.