Strategically Scaling 101: Funding Your Store’s Future

Although it’s important for Amazon sellers to maximize their current cash flow, the most surefire way to scale your business is through funding. While optimization is critical for success and improving your profit margins, you’ll always remain limited by the amount of working capital available within your business. By taking funding from external providers, you’re pushing the limits of your business and expanding your horizons for success.

In order to maintain access to a healthy amount of working capital over time, many Amazon sellers elect to take on supplementary funding. While some sellers are weary of ecommerce funding solutions, with the right preparations external funding can often help your cash flow scale faster and more sustainably–ensuring an edge over competitors. At the same time, having a plan for the allocation of any working capital ensures that you’re fully optimizing your funding and putting your money to work for you.

In our earlier blog, we covered strategies to optimize your ecommerce store’s cash flow. With the cash flow basics under our belt, let’s level up our cash flow knowledge by diving into funding for your business! We know not all funding is created equally. Let’s review considerations for selecting the best provider for your business and how to create a plan to allocate how you’ll use those funds.

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Find the Right Funding Solution for Your Business 

Long gone are the days when funding felt impossible to secure for your ecommerce business. Today there are a wide variety of funding providers and solutions available to Amazon sellers, meaning that it’s critical that you take the time to assess all your options and decide which is best for your business. 

Some of the most popular options for financing among Amazon Sellers include: 

Credit Cards 

If you’re new to ecommerce, looking for quick cash without an extended application, or hoping to get cash back on inventory purchases, credit cards may be a great fit for your business. However, be weary of funding your business entirely from credit cards as late payments will rapidly accrue steep fees and interest rates. 

Bank Loans 

If you’re an experienced Amazon seller and your business has a strong history of sales without cause for concern, you might qualify for a traditional banking loan. Banking loans typically come at a lower cost than other solutions and with more flexible terms, but have a much more rigorous application process and higher standards for qualification. This type of funding also takes the longest to acquire, meaning that if you’re looking for fast cash to take advantage of an opportunity, it might not be your best bet. 

Ecommerce Funding Solutions 

Today, many ecommerce-specific funding solutions exist to help Amazon sellers grow their businesses. Funding solutions, like Viably, offer a quick and painless application process along with ecommerce-specific requirements. If you’re looking for fast access to capital, personalized funding plans, or fully integrated tools to streamline your business, ecommerce funding solutions could be a solid choice. However, not all ecommerce funding solution providers are created equally, so evaluate each individually.  

Prepare a Plan for Funding

Even though some ecommerce funding solutions don’t place restrictions on how you spend supplementary working capital you acquire or ask for a business plan upon application, it doesn't mean you shouldn’t have a strategy prepared. By preparing a plan for funding you’ll ensure that every dollar gets put to the best use– meaning improved cash flow and greater profits. 

Your plan for funding should include: 

• How funds will be deployed: whether it’s through inventory purchases, investing in equipment or a new hire, or paying for marketing and advertising campaigns. 
• How this investment aligns with your long-term business goals and strategy.
• A detailed, data-backed forecast for how funding will drive measurable growth through these investments. 
• Clear metrics to evaluate while analyzing the return on investment of your deployed funds.

Final Thoughts

By truly optimizing your cash flow through strategic practices you’ll be able to access greater working capital to scale your business sustainably. With easy access to working capital, your business can fully optimize and streamline operations at any stage as you grow. While operating on cash flow alone can be limiting to your business’ growth, taking on a healthy dose of funding can be the key to success. 

In our next blog, we’ll explore the benefits of taking on personalized funding, designed to fit the needs of your business and help you scale sustainably.