SellersFi Surpasses $1B in Loans Since Inception, Experiences Success Through E-Commerce Funding
The timing of it all was fortuitous for SellersFi. When the company announced in January that it had secured a partnership with Amazon to provide eligible Amazon sellers with access to credit lines, it was clear that its fresh equity raise and credit facility of up to $300 million were going to be put to use. SellersFi wasn’t the only partner, however, and Amazon still did most of the lending to its own sellers directly, a business it had been in for more than a decade, but it was still a big relationship to have. But then it got better. In March, Amazon announced that it would end its direct lending program and rely entirely on its partners instead. For SellersFi that meant it would have the opportunity to service even more sellers on the platform than before. Since then, SellersFi has quietly surpassed $1 billion in loans since inception.
“What we are seeing now is less competition,” said Ricardo Pero, CEO of SellersFi, in a call with deBanked. He partially attributed that to the current interest rate environment which has impacted those with small margins. SellersFi, however, has experienced a lot of success. The company knows the e-commerce space particularly well, the only space it operates in, since its the only US lending platform also approved as a payment service provider member for Amazon. They started their relationship with Amazon as a service provider 3 years ago. While Pero said they have seen “nothing that points to a recession,” their experience suggests that even if one were to happen in the future, consumers would react by seeking out bargains on e-commerce platforms, reinforcing their position as the niche to be in. As readers may recall, a flight to e-commerce is also what happened during the pandemic.
E-commerce, however, is a broad umbrella, and Amazon is not alone in the universe. Millions of businesses rely on various platforms for e-commerce from basic templates with API connections to Shopify and more. Even big box brick and mortar retailers are waking up and rapidly inching their way into e-commerce. Walmart is just one example, which not only accommodates individual sellers on its platform but also offers merchant cash advances to them.
“The competitive landscape is changing for our clients,” Pero said. Pero added that they know what’s going on because they talk to these clients all the time and that even in the e-commerce business there are person-to-person relationships. “Customers mention their account managers by name,” Pero said. “We have a reputation as a partner to these merchants.”
One trend they’ve noticed over the last year or so is their strategy towards borrowing. While merchants have always typically used funds for things like advertising or inventory, the previous low rate environment enabled behavior where merchants could borrow first and then figure out how to spend the funds second whereas now that rates are higher there is a lot more of a deliberative approach to precisely how much they should get and what it will be used for in advance. It’s something they see all the time now and agree with. “You need to plan,” Pero said.
Last modified: June 14, 2024
Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.
