Sub-Prime Customer Financing: The Competitive Edge

It is a well know fact that Amazon has assisted many start-up small businesses by making available to them a less difficult way to purvey their products and/or services on-line.  

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However, if you ask small business owners who sell products or services to consumers who their strongest competition is, they will probably tell you that while Amazon has been helpful to some, Amazon is their greatest competitor by far.  Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, recently surpassed Warren Buffett  to become the third richest person on the planet.

Many small business owners, who are no longer in business feel that Amazon has taken them out of the game.  They feel that they were just not able to compete.

Many entrepreneurs who are no longer in business point to a playing field which is not level.  Amazon has been the beneficiary of many  sweetheart deals such as state related tax breaks for the construction of in state warehouses, apparent discounts from shipping companies as well as stock market investors.  While some states do collect sales tax for Amazon customers, some still do not.

The most distressful  thing by far that Amazon has done from the perspective of mom and pop retailers who have still managed to survive, is something know as “showrooming.”  If you are a small business owner and have a brick-and-mortar presence in your community, you may have had a prospective “customer” come into your place of business and ask you questions about your product, even try out your product, take up your time and ask your advice about your product, and then go home, go on-line and purchase that product from Amazon.  In December, 2011, Amazon went as far as to offer a 5% discount for any customer who was checking out prices while still in a local store.

This is nothing against Amazon.  As already noted Amazon has done much to help small business owners succeed at selling their products or services on line.  But, what can you as a small business owner do to compete and provide a reason why a prospective customer should buy from you?

Unless you are providing sub-prime customer financing for your prospective buyers, you are definitely placing  yourself at yet another distinct disadvantage.

Access Funding Center, Inc. provides a consulting service that can position you to provide retail installment financing not only to your stellar customers but also to your customers with subprime credit.  You may be able to offer consumer contract financing to your customers with credit scores as low as 600.

Access Funding Center, Inc. can put you in touch with non-traditional funding sources who will look at your customers on a personal level and make a professional determination as to whether it makes good business sense to extend financing to motivated customers who would not be able to acquire financing from traditional financing sources.  

This gives you a competitive edge because it positions you to close a sale that you might not otherwise have been able to close.  The other side of the coin, in this type of transaction, is that you can then sell the retail installment contract to the funding source and receive an immediate cash out of the same consumer receivable contract.  So instead of waiting a year, or two years, or whatever your consumer note stipulates, you can cash out your consumer contracts and greatly enhance your cash flow and thereby your profitability.

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