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.

Ricardo Pero, CEO, SellersFi

“What we are seeing now is less competition,” said Ricardo Pero, CEO of SellersFi, in a call with AltFinanceDaily. 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.

Controversial Search Engine Marketing Tactic Targeted by Google

When company domain names expire, some investors snatch them up to take advantage of the residual benefits left behind. That is that if the company had a significant footprint in search engines before going out of business then it can pay big money to bring that domain name back to life and monetize its organic search traffic.

But Google hasn’t become too fond of this strategy since it’s apparently often used in a deceptive manner.

“Expired domain abuse is where an expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value to users,” wrote Google as part of its new policy. “Expired domain abuse isn’t something people accidentally do. It’s a practice employed by people who hope to rank well in Search with low-value content by using the past reputation of a domain name. These domains are generally not intended for visitors to find them in any other way but through search engines. It’s fine to use an old domain name for a new, original site that’s designed to serve people first.”

Google also made changes to its core algorithm that is reducing “unhelpful, low-quality, unoriginal content in its search results by 40%.”

Once upon a time Google organic search traffic could be make or break for a company but today there are so many platforms that people are using (Think the Amazon Echo, ChatGPT, TikTok, and more) that it is merely one channel out of many on the internet to acquire customers.

The Biggest Small Business Funders

Although all of the specific data isn’t entirely available, we’ve compiled a short list of who the largest small business funders were in 2023:

1. Square
2. Enova
3. PayPal
4. Shopify
5. Amazon
6. Intuit
7. Parafin

Tips From Tibbs: Vendor Marketing Guide

The fine line between being successful and being stagnant in the equipment finance industry can easily be determined by vendor relationships. Cheryl Tibbs (CEO/Owner at Equipment Lease Co.), a veteran in the field, recently released her Vendor Marketing Guide this past October. The ten-chapter booklet covers various aspects, including vendor marketing, contact building, crafting value propositions, and more.

Vendors are businesses authorized to sell equipment to end-users, Tibbs explains, and establishing a relationship with them can take a broker that is used to hunting for individual deals to instead being the recipient of multiple deals per week. But how to get that business is where most brokers get stuck.

“I think a lot of brokers get stuck with, ‘Well, how do I find vendors and what exactly is a vendor?’” she told AltFinanceDaily. “I think that chapter three sticks out in particular, just making contact, knowing how to find a vendor, what to say when you get a vendor on the hook, and how to engage with that vendor.”

Tibbs said that brokers often assume that vendors already have a bank in-house when that is not always the case. This thinking might also lead them to shoot too low even when they do solicit them.

“A lot of equipment brokers they market to vendors and say, ‘Hey, send me the stuff that your people won’t finance’ and I think if you ask for trash, you’re going to get trash,” said Tibbs. If a relationship is built properly, a broker can get the vendor’s A-paper clients, she added.

Not only does the guide breakdown vendor relationships but also provides examples of how to pursue them, whether it be email, in-person, etc. The guide is not where education ends for brokers, however. Tibbs believes it’s an on-going learning experience.

“I think if you’re making money and you’re building these relationships, that’s motivation in and of itself, to continue to sharpen your knowledge with regard to this,” she said.