Three Keys to Mastering Your Supply Chain

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Kaylyn Perry

One of the hardest parts of starting a business is understanding your supply chain. With so many moving parts and barriers, a company’s supply chain can often be one of the biggest setbacks towards reaching success.

Supply chain problems are the biggest cause of failure, as if you can’t get your product to your end consumer, you don’t have a business to start with. To better understand your supply chain, you need to first know the ins and outs of your product.

This mainly revolves around the material and design, and communicating this clearly to your manufacturer is a key to success. If you aren’t on the same page with your manufacturer, there is no way your product will come as specified.

The first step in mastering your supply chain is finding the right manufacturer. You can either use a open database like Alibaba where you’ll spend hours searching or utilize a platform like Sourcify that introduces you to the right manufacturer and walks you through the product development cycle.

Once you’ve found a manufacturer that you think is capable and reliable, it’s time to dive deeper into the manufacturing process. To master your supply chain, you need to know the following three keys:

Product Margin

One of the biggest killers of any business is not knowing your numbers. As an entrepreneur, you should know all facets of cost associated with your product. From the supply chain perspective, this includes cost per specific piece, import tax, shipping fees, and of course the actual unit cost.

For some entrepreneurs, buying wholesale can be an attractive option as you can often buy domestically with lower minimum order quantities. You also don’t have to deal with an overseas manufacturer.

What many entrepreneurs overlook though, is the fact that wholesalers take their own margin and it’s often as high as 60%. With the use of capital being so important to a startup’s success, it almost always makes sense to avoid wholesalers and go directly to the manufacturing source.

Lead Times

If you don’t know the answers to the following two questions you better find out for yourself very fast: How long does it take to finish a production run? How long does it take to ship finished products from your manufacturer to your warehouse?

Lead times can make or break a business and when dealing with manufacturers overseas, you need to understand the expected lead times and variables that may cause delays. As an example, in China during their Chinese New Year, factories can often be closed for up to two weeks. If you aren’t prepared for this off time, your company might not get its products manufactured in time.

Risk Management

The main point in risk management of a supply chain revolves around not being single sourced. This means you should always have a backup manufacturer to produce your products in case something happens to the first.

For example, one of the shoe manufacturers that was working with Sourcify had a building collapse in Thailand due to a landslide. Luckily no one was in the building at the time but as you can imagine, this caused the manufacturer to stop production for a few months as they rebuilt the building.

If this shoe company had been single sourced, they would have been scrambling for another manufacturer. Luckily for them, working with Sourcify enabled them to never be single sourced and they were introduced to a similar manufacturer who was capable of producing their shoes.

Risk management also extends to having contacts to multiple people in a company and multiple points of contact. Though you will mostly be communicating with a sales rep, it is also important to know other reps in that company or a manager.

Creating and managing a supply chain is a full time job and working on your relationships with a manufacturer is an ongoing process. To master your supply chain, you need to understand your product margins, know your lead times, and manage all the risks involved.

A “FIRSTLOOK” at Community

Posted on October 6, 2021February 1, 2025 by Kaylyn Perry

Community is the buzzword of the moment. It seems like every startup is hiring for a Head of Community (PS checkout our job board because maybe the startup of your dreams is hiring for a Head of Community!)

But what does community actually mean?

According to our founder Brian Folmer, “community is what happens when the brand leaves the room.”

With this definition in mind, we reached out to two people who built communities that fit this description:

Greg Ashton, the founder of GROW, a community for ecomm and DTC brands and Mattie Ellis, the Head of Brand Partnerships at Pop Up Grocer and Emily Schildt’s right hand woman.

Both GROW and Pop Up Grocer have serious traction.

Back in August, GROW hosted a sold-out, in-person event in NYC with hundreds of attendees and an impressive line-up of speakers.

In May, Pop Up Grocer wrapped up its Chicago pop-up where thousands of people walked through its doors to discover new and exciting products.

We know your time is precious, so we made a little TLDR to identify some key points on “community” 😉.

To read the full interviews keep scrollin’.

TLDR:

Scale your community with intention AKA have a set of standards

Greg has 20K members in GROW. He looks at every application and asks himself a series of questions to determine if the applicant is the right fit.
Pop Up Grocer showcases emerging brands. It’s Chicago pop-up had 400+ new products. Mattie vets every single one of these brands to ensure it meets Pop Up Grocer’s criteria on nutrition, founder story, packaging, and sustainability.

Community isn’t a one-off thing, you have to constantly nurture it

In addition to hosting IRL events, Greg hosts a series of Google Hangouts where like-minded marketers can connect, share tips & industry expertise.
Even in the pandemic, Pop-Up-Grocer showed up. Last June, it opened a 30-day pop-up in Austin. Through this activation, it donated 5% of all sales to All Together ATX, a COVID-related community fund.

Don’t forget about the power of IRL experiences. Every community needs a physical forum to meet and connect. It can’t all happen online.

As Mattie Ellis says, “ From day one we have viewed the increase in online shopping as an opportunity for our business — not the threat. We’re excited to continue building on the complementary experiences we create, both online and off.”

Event planning starts a year in advance. As soon as the big event is over, planning for the next one begins.

Greg is already well into planning the next GROW event in LA on Feb 24,2022
Pop Up Grocer is gearing up for its next launch in 2022 that puts another spin on the traditional brick-and-mortar grocery.

Greg Ashton

Greg is the founder of GROW and sustainable sock brand Inside Story
GROW is a global community of online retail brands, technology providers, investors and agencies. GROW has 20K members, an active Slack group with 4K+ members, and a newsletter with ~17K subscribers.

I’m an alien who came to earth for a day. How would you explain GROW to me?

At its core, GROW is a community of marketers.

I believe we live in a time where most people lack a sense of belonging that comes from being a part of a “traditional” community.

With GROW, I’m trying to solve this lack of community, and I’m guided by these questions:

How do I build a true, authentic community that people want to be in?
How do I create a community where people are interested in what others have to say?
How do I build a community that people get value from and then tell other people about?

How do you define community?

Three years ago I saw a quote on Twitter that perfectly summed it up:

Every business today claims to have a community, but if you’re not actually Fostering Connections between your members, you don’t have a community. You just have an audience.

Building a community is not rocket science. The most crucial part of it is to get out of the way and let your members talk to each other.

GROW started as a Slack group with 15 members. Now the Slack has 4K+ members. How did you make that happen?

My background is in e-commerce. I ran a large, e-commerce trade show in Palm Springs for several years.

The initial 15 members were founders from emerging brands that were going against the grain and setting new trends.

It didn’t take a lot of convincing to get them to join. I wasn’t selling them a product or asking them to buy something.

When you offer something with value for free, it makes it very hard to say no.

When you started GROW what milestones did you set for yourself?

My first goal was simply to hit 1000 members. That first 1000 was the hardest to hit but growth was exponential after that.

Starting something is really, really hard in the beginning but it does get easier.

In the early days, many people said monetize the group as quickly as possible, charge a membership fee, add vendors to the group, include advertising in the newsletters, and so on. I was adamant that we should keep everything free, and it still is.

What was it like to throw the first GROW live event?

I created trade shows for a long time, so I knew how to plan & execute a large scale event.

I didn’t want to throw an event that felt like a typical trade-show. We held our first event in a converted factory. It was a big, raw empty space which was pretty cool.

However, the hardest part was figuring out whether or not people would show. I have this recurring dream that nobody shows up and I’m standing on a stage in a completely empty room.

It’s normal to be nervous about guest turnout because there’s a lot of money, sponsorship, and reputation at stake.

Also most people don’t realize this but the day we finish a big event, planning starts for next year’s event. It takes a full year to plan an event of this scale (GROW in-person events have 700+ people attending).

As your community scales, how do you ensure it keeps its value and intention?

I think you have to be very selective with who you actually admit to that community.

When reviewing GROW membership applications, I ask myself these questions:

Is this person an expert in a particular area?
Do they have a strong or different opinion?
Is this person shaking things up?
Is this person adding value to the world of e-comm?

It’s also important to give people a physical forum to meet and connect. I think Comic-Con is a great example of this!

What do the next 12 months look like for GROW?

I’m going to be hiring!

We’re going to throw more in-person events in Los Angeles and New York. I also want to bring GROW over to the UK.

Most importantly, I’ll continue to bring people together in unexpected ways that lead to lasting relationships!

Mattie Ellis

Mattie is the Head of Brand Partnerships at Pop Up Grocer and she runs her own consultancy for emerging CPG brands.

How does Pop Up Grocer (AKA PUG) define community?

Community is an integral to our success and sits at the heart of our business.

And as with any community, ours is defined by shared interests and values (grocery/CPG, curiosity, small business, creativity).

It’s made up of the network of emerging brands we serve, our loyal visitors, and industry collaborators.

We act as a connector between key players in the CPG world — introducing early adopters and tastemakers to the most exciting, new brands, and vice versa. On the B2B side, we create a space for influential buyers and investors to discover new brands, helping them build their roadmap for future growth.

Does PUG work with brands that already have a strong community?

In curating our showcases, we prioritize emerging brands. Oftentimes, being very new-to-market, these brands are in the early stages of developing their own audiences.

Our selection process is focused more so on criteria like nutrition, founder story, packaging, and sustainability. If brands already have a strong following, that’s a bonus!

I’ve noticed a serious increase in attention to launch strategy, given the competition in CPG. From crowdfunding to celebrity endorsements, brands seem to be getting increasingly creative and community-minded at earlier stages.

How does PUG retain a loyal community as a pop-up?

On the brand side, we retain loyalty through successful activations, organized communication, and creative collaboration.

On the consumer side, we retain loyalty through consistency. Shoppers know that every brand on our shelf has been thoughtfully reviewed, selected, and received our PUG stamp of approval. They also trust that our shelves will always have the newest, most exciting brands, and that they’ll be some of the first out there to experience the products.

By consistently delivering on this element of discovery, we’re able to build and retain authentic engagement.

What do the next 12 months look like for PUG?

We’ve got some very exciting things in the works! We’re leveling up on all fronts. We’ll be introducing ourselves in an entirely new format, set to launch in 2022, that puts yet another spin on the traditional brick-and-mortar grocery.

From day one we have viewed the increase in online shopping as an opportunity for our business — not the threat.

We’re excited to continue building on the complementary experiences we create, both online and off. And, as always, I’m thrilled about the brands we’re working with. We always aim to outdo ourselves!

This is a guest post from Firstlook. FirstLook cuts the friction between founders and investors by sending innovative products from emerging, high-growth consumer brands directly to early-stage investors via a subscription box.

Amazon and the Anti-Trust Tech Bill: What the New Legislation Means for the Future of Amazon Sellers

Posted on October 6, 2021February 1, 2025 by Kaylyn Perry

In mid-August of 2021, many Amazon merchants and vendors received an ominous letter from a third-party site warning them of the following:

“We’re reaching out to a small group of our sellers to make them aware of a package of legislative proposals, currently in Congress, that is aimed at regulating Amazon and other large technology companies,” the email states. “It is early in the process and the bills are subject to change, but we are concerned that they could potentially have significant negative effects on small and medium-sized businesses like yours that sell in our store.”

Because this email didn’t come directly from Amazon, many speculated it was a scam. But it wasn’t. In fact, quite the opposite, Amazon was so serious that this email requested follow-up phone calls with sellers, meant to forewarn (some might say intimidate) third-party sellers of a future that might be the extermination of “Amazon life as we know it.” To exacerbate the confounding situation even more, a dedicated website was issued to the public for sellers and vendors to stay informed of any progress, changes, or implementations.

Here’s what you need to know about the 6 bills introduced in the Anti-Trust Tech bill and what it really means (if anything) for third-party sellers.

What is the Anti-Trust Tech Bill?

In early June of 2021, House legislatures introduced sweeping antitrust legislation (a total of 6 bills) aimed to dismantle the power of companies like Amazon, Apples, Facebook, and Google to prevent them from advertising their own company on their own platform in ways that impede other sellers’ success in marketplaces that can be construed as a monopoly in many skeptics’ eyes.

The bills that were passed by the House of Representatives would make it easier to break up businesses that used their dominance in one area to get a stronghold in another. This would potentially create obstacles for conglomerates trying to procure/monopolize rivaling companies. Conversely, it would also provide funding for regulators to police company protocol.

Should the legislation go into effect, it would change the playing field for many, first and foremost increasing the threshold at which any acquisitions or mergers by big-tech weren’t the results of obstructing competition from third-party sellers or start-ups within their own platform. More specific to Amazon, the new legislation could revoke Amazon’s privilege of selling their over-100 companies on its platform which indefinitely allows the conglomerate the ability to sell cheaper items and utilize PPC strategies that undercut their competitors.

Simply put: Amazon shouldn’t have the ability to sell their own products in a way that directly competes and undercuts those that are using their platform to operate their own business.

Amazon’s Unique Platform Allows Sellers Multiple Advantages

Jeff Bezos has long contributed the success of Amazon to its laser focus on customer happiness. Their quick shipping and logistics coupled with their endless selection of items play a massive part in their strategy to surpass consumer expectations and maintain a loyal customer base.

To deliver on that promise, the strategy has been a long game. It took 7 years for Amazon to turn a profit as they reinvested in building infrastructure and working on their now-famous operational capacity that has set them head and shoulders above any other marketplace. But with such concern over their customers, the question remains: What about their sellers?

While Amazon holds strong that their unique FBA management solutions and their unrivaled bandwidth provides all their sellers a fair and advantageous opportunity over other seller platforms, some merchants would disagree. The behemoth’s pay-to-play set-up (which can be evidenced in PPC rates skyrocketing within the last year) suggests that third-party sellers really aren’t utilizing a fair playing field.

Amazon Has Made Some Monopolizing Decisions in The Past For Sellers

As a result of rising PPC costs and competition, many sellers started to expand to other sales channels that didn’t require such high fees, Amazon came back with a “most favored nation clause’ to add to their seller agreements. The “most favored nation” stated that “You will maintain parity between the products you offer through [other platforms] and the products you list on any Amazon site.” This effectively stated that price, product description, and standards needed to be maintained on all platforms. Amazon’s stance was that it was trying to prevent sellers from price gouging. Yet many contended that it was really to ensure traffic wasn’t driven away from Amazon due to better pricing and advertising.

In 2019, Amazon updated this specific language after antitrust scrutiny, following suit from 6 years prior when they were forced to remove it for similar backlash in the UK. Stories came in of sellers who tried to lower their prices on other platforms only to have their listings suppressed on Amazon within a week. Reports say this wasn’t coincidental given that, when these other competing listings were removed, their Amazon presence was reinstated.

This sort of preemptive gaslighting didn’t stop there. Unsurprisingly, the other seller-funded cash machine on the famous marketplace is advertising. Amazon is the third-largest digital advertising company, outpacing the revenue of Snap, Twitter, Roku, and Pinterest combined – twice over. This only widened the gap between sellers who did or did not choose to pay up, making it nearly impossible for sellers that couldn’t afford PPC to climb the pages of Amazon’s catalog.

Should Amazon Be Allowed to Compete with Their Sellers?

With FBA fees incrementally increasing (particularly around the holidays) and advertising spend pushing self-fulfilling, organic sellers further and further down SERPs, many Amazon sellers have found it nearly impossible to compete with Amazon brands, big companies like Reebok and Apple, and recent aggregators/M&A’s that can afford egregious amounts of advertising real estate.

Amazon has reported that 92% of their third-party sellers utilize FBA, and in 2020 contributed $80.5 billion to their bottom line. This comes as little surprise given the practices highlighted above. Merchants can feel left with little choice other than to utilize FBA services, particularly with the Prime Badge incentivizing Prime members to only purchase products that offer 2-day delivery. Which, for a free marketplace, doesn’t seem so free after a while.

With over 100 private-label brands – not including Amazon Basics – it would appear that Amazon is in direct competition with the same sellers who’ve bolstered and grown the marketplace.

While Amazon claims that the use of their proprietary sales data is simply meant to inform their private label businesses of opportunities and sales trends, this information would obviously give them an edge over any company on their platform (even though Amazon remains unwavering in their claim that they do not look at individual seller data but rather data in aggregate. Regardless, the access to information that only can be known at a platform level can only be interpreted as an unfair competitive advantage over individual sellers. This is the crux of any antitrust accusations to Amazon’s private-label business; that they’ve taken advantage of their competition. This inside information has made them able to acquire, copy, and stifle the competition of these same third-party sellers that once made Amazon the behemoth that it is today.

What Happened in Washington?

In May of 2021, suits were filed against Amazon by the Attorney General of Washington D.C. over their unfair price tactics. This joined the ongoing anti-trust cases against other big tech firms – Google and Facebook. The House Judiciary Committee brought forward 6 bills in an anti-trust legislative sweep that was approved to continue in June. These bills are not directed solely at Amazon, but send a message to big tech companies in general that so far have been able to grow untouched by government regulation. If this move is for better or worse seems to be up for personal opinion. On the surface, the House legislators are trying to even the scales of government intervention across all public sectors and prevent price-fixing or manipulation under the concept of consumer protection.

Of the 6 bills, the one most pointed towards Amazon is the Ending Platform Monopolies Act, which is sponsored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Her district covers Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle along with many other tech companies such as Microsoft. This bill aims to prevent platforms from offering a product or service that users must purchase or use in exchange for access to the platform.

If enforced, this could essentially fly in the face of Amazon where sellers pay the FBA premium in exchange for a competitive advantage. Conversely, you could look at it as a premium service offering that in no way bars other sellers from accessing the platform. Where this will land depends largely on the information that only Amazon knows and litigators hope will be uncovered in the upcoming months.

With the increased pressure upon them from lawmakers, Amazon has started to use its considerable war chest to bolster its defense with a D.C. area-based legal team, comprised of former federal prosecutors and regulators. Hoping that these insiders can use their knowledge of the system to steal Amazon against allegations that could affect its future profitability and returns to shareholders.

In addition to the in-house legal council in 2020, Amazon spent in excess of $18 million on lobbying expenditures. This is only second to Facebook’s lobbying spend and is a company record.

They’ve also decided to try to mobilize their sellers – those very people that the legislation is attempting to empower. Amazon’s approach is that big government is going to make it harder for Amazon to do business, thus affecting both vendors and sellers that rely on their domain. In conjunction with an email they sent to all of their merchants, They’ve set up a website to help sellers stay up to date on the newest news, branding both communication attempts to launch fear among the very people Amazon relies on to serve its customers.

In Conclusion

The question then becomes, “Will Amazon completely change its business model if these 6 bills are formally instated? They certainly have the right to, just as any business does. But what becomes of the millions of sellers that currently utilize the marketplace to maintain their lifestyle and their dream? It seems as though sellers are being put in a tough situation: capitulate with Amazon’s commitment to utilize their own platform by selling their own products or support a bill that may change the course of their business forever.

One thing is for certain: Amazon needs to be careful that it doesn’t bite the two hands that feed it – its loyal customers that may be turned off by the new image as well as its army of FBA sellers who bolstered its web presence to stratospheric heights. This isn’t so much a tale of David and Goliath as it is a fight between David (the government) and David (tech titans). The only Goliath is the sellers and end-users in the bleachers trying to avoid being collateral damage as they look on to the ensuing battle.

The good news is that there are certain measures you can take right now to ensure quality products, customer satisfaction, and better reviews and ratings. If you want to compete with the big dogs, you have to remember that your services and products need to be seamless. Part of that entails proper quality inspection of all of your products. Listen here

as we discuss with WAPI the importance of good inspections and don’t forget to check out Movley’s website to learn how you can better your business through unique, ethical, and integrated inspection processes that are unrivaled to any other inspection company.

This is a guest post from Movley. Movley was founded by Sajag Agarwal after his e-commerce brand startup had issues with fraud and bad quality control. Despite well-engineered products, passed inspections, good factories, and good process, Sajag faced brutal worsening quality issues. In 2017, he moved to China visiting factories every day and doing his own inspections. Sajag discovered that good inspections would have identified almost all of his manufacturing defects before shipment.

The Easiest Way to Fund Inventory and Grow your Business after Crowdfunding

Posted on October 6, 2021January 28, 2025 by Kaylyn Perry

Launching a successful crowdfunding campaign is only the first step of creating a successful business.

After you fulfill your orders for your crowdfunding backers, you’ll want to keep selling on an ecommerce platform or to retailers to keep growing your business.

In order to sell, you need inventory. Sounds simple, but getting inventory isn’t always that easy (or affordable in lieu of the ongoing shipping crisis).

Fortunately, Kickfurther has come up with an amazing solution for funding inventory. Plus, it’s significantly more affordable with a lower barrier to entry than other routes!

Read on to learn how LaunchBoom can get you qualified for Kickfurther and scale your business, and how Kickfurther can get you funding for your first rounds of inventory quickly and affordably!

Launch your product with LaunchBoom

Although funding with Kickfurther is incredibly easy and affordable, there are still basic requirements you need to meet. In order to qualify for Kickfurther’s low cost, quick inventory funding, you have to pass their vetting process by showing revenue documentation, a business credit report and more.

This presents a problem for businesses or businesses launching a new product. They don’t yet have the funds for inventory and they don’t have the history of sales to qualify for Kickfurther funding.

Enter LaunchBoom.

LaunchBoom can validate your product via crowdfunding in as little as 14 days.

We create your sales funnel and gather leads for your crowdfunding campaign so that you crush your funding goal on the first day (a “LaunchBoom”) and raise funds to fulfill the orders to your backers.

Once you’ve delivered on your crowdfunding campaign, your product has a proven sales record and can qualify for Kickfurther’s inventory funding!

Get funding for inventory with Kickfurther

Now that you have revenue documentation and have successfully demonstrated that you can sell your product, it’s time to bring in Kickfurther.

Kickfurther is THE go-to platform for funding inventory after you’ve fulfilled orders from your crowdfunding campaign. It’s a great way for early stage e-commerce companies to buy inventory without taking on debt or giving up equity in the company.

What makes Kickfurther amazing

Kickfuther gets e-commerce brands funding for inventory at rates 30% cheaper than other options like factoring, PO financing and many lenders. Plus, they fund a whopping 99.5% of deals.

Most banks won’t provide you with loans until you have 2 years of profitable tax returns, whereas there is no time in business requirement with Kickfurther.

The only access to capital you’re left with are Merchant Cash Advances (MCA loans a.k.a loan sharks). That’s where they take money directly out of your bank account at annualized interest rates anywhere from 25%-75%. It sucks the cash out of your business and most product businesses can’t afford this, anyway.

How does it work?

Kickfurther’s community crowdfunds working capital to entrepreneurs to help fund their next round of inventory. These funds are available when you need to pay your supplier to produce more inventory. Payments aren’t due until after the inventory sells and customer payment is received, so it’s fully customized around your supply chain.

What’s in it for the backers? Kickfurther’s community gets back 1-2% profit per month on their investment!

1-2% a month (12-24% annualized) is a solid return for the Kickfurther community. That is also significantly lower than MCA loans for the businesses, so it’s a win-win for both sides!

So, after you’ve launched your successful crowdfunding campaign and qualified for Kickfurther’s platform, simply launch your inventory campaign on Kickfurther to raise funds to continue scaling on e-commerce.

Scale your business to the moon with ScaleBoom!

So now that you have all this inventory, the most important thing you need to do with it is sell it.

If you already have a successful product that uses Kickfurther to fund inventory, you can partner with LaunchBoom’s e-commerce division, ScaleBoom, to quickly sell through that inventory and access larger amounts of funding at cheaper rates, and scale into a 7-figure business.

ScaleBoom services

Unlike most digital advertising agencies that just manage your spend and advertising, ScaleBoom partners with you on your business and fully manages your e-commerce store on Shopify.

ScaleBoom does product positioning, web design, web development, copywriting, creative content/production, paid social, SEO, email and SMS marketing.

It’s like having a built-in business consultant. They also give you market feedback and help with inventory forecasting, 3PL partners, pricing and more.

All that’s left for you to manage is fulfillment, product quality, customer service and social media. Leave the selling to ScaleBoom!

A Real Example: TidyBoard leveraged LaunchBoom & Kickfurther for massive success

TidyBoard launched with us on Kickstarter in June 2020. We helped them raise more than $600k during their month-long crowdfunding campaign.

They used the funds from their crowdfunding campaign to deliver their product to all their backers. After that, they had no cash to fund their first inventory order. That’s where Kickfurther came in.

When TidyBoard launched on Kickfurther, more than $53k in inventory was funded in just 30 minutes!

Once TidyBoard got their inventory, they hired ScaleBoom to set up and run their e-commerce business.

ScaleBoom took TidyBoard from $0 in sales to $267,000 in the first 60 days! (That’s a first year run rate of over $1.5M and growing!) 💸

The ScaleBoom team sold the inventory out in ½ the time the inventory was expected to last, meaning Kickfurther buyers got paid back and TidyBoard returned to Kickfurther to fund their second round of inventory which raised $184k in 24 hours. 🎉

LaunchBoom, Kickfurther & ScaleBoom: which is right for you right now?

LaunchBoom, Kickfurther and ScaleBoom are the trifecta when it comes to launching a successful e-commerce business quickly and affordably.

LaunchBoom’s crowdfunding services are perfect to kickoff new projects and get you in a place where you have your first round of orders, are successfully selling, and can utilize Kickfurther’s incredible community to continue scaling your business, like we did with Tidyboard.

Talk to LaunchBoom about launching your product today.

Kickfurther’s inventory funding services are ideal if you’ve already launched a successful crowdfunding campaign and are ready to dive into e-commerce with your first orders of inventory. It’s the easiest, most affordable way to fund your growth and keep your business scaling!

Sign up with Kickfurther for inventory funding.

And finally, if you have a product that you’ve already been selling, but you’re worried about funding with Kickfurther and struggling to sell through your inventory, we’re also here to help with our ecommerce division, ScaleBoom.

We were able to sell through TidyBoard’s inventory so quickly at such a high Return on Ad Spend, that we actually had to slow down our ads to allow them time to replenish their inventory.

Talk to ScaleBoom about growing your e-commerce business today.

This is a guest post from Launchboom. LaunchBoom is the most effective product launch system and full service marketing agency that manages the entire crowdfunding process from start to finish.

What You Must Know Before You Apply for Inventory Financing

Posted on October 4, 2021January 27, 2025 by Kaylyn Perry

As the name implies, inventory financing is used by businesses to acquire goods that are sold at a later date. Inventory financing is useful for startups that have exhausted other efforts to secure financing or for small businesses with seasonal inventory. While easier to acquire, it is important to note that inventory financing may present challenges such as higher interest rates and shorter payment periods.

Key points:

Inventory financing is a form of asset-based lending that allows companies to leverage their inventory when taking out a loan.
This type of financing option usually comes in the form of an inventory term loan or an inventory line of credit. Both types of inventory financing business loans help small to medium-sized businesses provide better customer experience by keeping their most popular items in stock during peak shopping seasons.
Inventory financing loans are easier to acquire but may have less favorable repayment terms.

What are inventory loans?

If you are new to inventory loans, one of the most important things to understand is the concept of loan-to-value ratio (LTV). LTV is a risk assessment factor that lenders use to determine the risk of a particular loan. In simpler terms, the higher the value of your inventory, the more risk a lender is taking on by approving your loan.

Typically, businesses that apply for inventory loans receive up to 80% financing based on the appraised value of their inventory. In the event that a borrower defaults on a loan, the lender reserves the right to seize the purchased inventory and sell them to recover the lent capital.

As mentioned above, this type of asset-based lending uses a business’ inventory as collateral and usually comes in the form of a term loan or a line of credit.

What is an inventory term loan?

An inventory loan is a short-term loan that allows businesses to receive the full amount of money upfront to be used only for purchasing inventory. Like other term loans, an inventory loan should be paid back in fixed monthly installments over a predetermined time period.

What is an inventory line of credit?

On the other hand, an inventory line of credit is a revolving line that businesses can access as needed. What sets an inventory line of credit apart from an inventory loan is that it offers more flexibility especially for businesses that require funding for ongoing inventory purchases. A line of credit’s repayment terms differ from a term loan as you only pay interest on the amount that you have borrowed and not the total amount available.

When it comes to inventory financing loans, it is important to remember that the amount you can borrow depends on the value of your inventory and how much risk a lender is willing to take when lending you money. As a rule of thumb, most lenders set an LTV ratio of 50% to inventories pledged as collateral. However, it’s also possible that businesses may receive up to 80% financing depending on the inventory’s liquidation value.

Is inventory financing secured or unsecured?

Typically, loans fall into one of two main categories: secured loans and unsecured loans. The main difference between the two is that secured loans require borrowers to pledge collateral while unsecured loans do not. An inventory financing loan is technically considered as a secure loan since it is secured by a business’ inventory.

What are the most common reasons a business may require an inventory loan?

There are a number of reasons why businesses apply for inventory financing. Let’s take a look at some of the most common reasons below:

Reason #1: To address cash flow issues

It’s a known fact that most, if not all, businesses experience busy and slow seasons. An inventory financing loan can help keep you afloat during periods of fluctuating demand.

Reason #2: To take advantage of bulk discounts

Who doesn’t like discounts? As a business owner, an inventory financing loan can help you take advantage of bulk discounts even if you are currently experiencing poor cash flow.

Reason #3: To acquire additional financing

It goes without saying that inventory financing is easier to acquire compared to other types of loans. If your business has had no luck after exhausting every avenue to acquire additional financing, then inventory financing may be right for you.

Does your business qualify for inventory financing?

If you’re serious about pursuing an inventory financing loan, you might be wondering if your business is qualified for this type of funding option. In general, the criteria for an inventory financing loan vary from one lender to another. However, you should at least expect to meet the following requirements in order to qualify:

Your business must be operational for at least one year.
You must be able to provide proof that your business is profitable.
You must be a product-based business with a reliable inventory management system
You must be able to present relevant and accurate inventory and financial records.
You must be willing to undergo a due diligence process that would involve an appraisal of your inventory.

Pro tip: To make sure that you qualify, speak with your potential lender directly to determine what their prerequisites are.

Pros & Cons of Inventory Financing

Businesses need steady cash flow to stay competitive. It’s now up to you, the business owner, to determine if inventory financing loans meet your business’s needs. To help you make an informed decision, let’s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of inventory loans.

Pros of Inventory Financing:

An inventory financing loan may help businesses prepare for peak shopping seasons.
An inventory financing loan may help businesses that are trying to launch a new product.
An inventory loan also allows businesses to take advantage of bulk deals and other time-sensitive discounts.

Cons of Inventory Financing:

Business owners should expect a lengthy and expensive due diligence process when applying for an inventory financing loan.
An inventory financing loan may require high loan minimums and charge high interest rates.
When it comes to inventory financing, loans cannot be used for other financing needs. As you may have already guessed, inventory financing loans should ONLY be used to purchase inventory.

What are the costs associated with financing your inventory?

Like other forms of funding, an inventory loan also comes with its own set of fees.

Appraisal fees – Also known as an inspection fee, an appraisal fee is a payment for an independent appraiser that is tasked to assess the value of your inventory.
Prepayment penalty – A prepayment penalty is a fee charged by a financial institution if you pay your loan early.
Origination fees – An up front fee charged by a lender to process a loan application.
Late fees – A charge that borrowers pay when they fail to make a payment on time.

Keep in mind that the fees associated with inventory loans are determined on a case-by-case basis. This is by no means a comprehensive list of fees that you may encounter when applying for an inventory loan. Again, make sure to get in touch with your potential lender and ask what costs and fees are associated with your loan product before signing a binding contract.

What if applying for an inventory financing loan is not right for your business?

Insufficient capital is one of the many roadblocks that business owners face when running a business. The great news is, depending on your business’s qualifications, you may be eligible for other types of financing that may be more favorable based on your current financial requirements. If you’re open to considering alternative funding options such as angel investors, online loans, and crowdfunding – check out Kickfurther.

What is Kickfurther?

We are the world’s first online inventory financing platform that enables companies to access funds they usually cannot acquire through traditional sources. We connect brands to a community of eager buyers who help fund the inventory on consignment and give brands the flexibility to pay that back as they receive cash from their sales. This alleviates the cash-flow pinch that lenders can cause without customized repayment schedules allowing your brand to scale quickly without impeding your ability to maintain inventory.

Why Kickfurther?

Don’t pay until you sell

Your payment obligation only begins once your sales are made. This alleviates the cash-flow pinch that lenders cause without customized repayment schedules. And helps to free up capital to put into scaling your business without impeding your ability to maintain inventory.

30% cheaper funding

We cost less than factoring, PO financing, and many lending options. We also have higher funding limits.

Fund up to $1m in an hour

Once your deal is approved and goes live, most deals are funded within a day.

We can grow with you

Companies access higher funding limits and often get lower rates as they come back to Kickfurther. This creates a scalable solution that can grow alongside your company.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re considering applying for a traditional bank loan or trying out inventory financing, you – as the business owner – will be the best person to determine what type of loan makes the most financial sense for you and your business. As with any important business decision, make sure to do your due diligence and get to know the ins and outs of inventory financing before making a decision.

Essential Customer Service Tips for Your eCommerce Business in 2021

Posted on September 12, 2021February 1, 2025 by Kaylyn Perry

According to Microsoft, a massive 95% of consumers consider customer service as important for brand loyalty, so much so that over 60% of consumers have left a brand and switched to a competitor because of poor customer service.

Good customer service is also very essential for customer retention and improving customer lifetime value as 89% of consumers are more likely to purchase again from your business if you give them a positive customer service experience.

In a very competitive business world, it is more than necessary to invest in customer service and do it right from the word go because you may not get many chances to make it right as about four out of every five customers will not forgive a bad experience with a business they rate its customer service as very poor.

Here: let’s look at some essential customer service tips to help you grow your eCommerce business in 2021;

Personalize Customer Experience
Be Proactive With Follow-Ups
Use Customer Feedback To Improve Experience
Employ An Omnichannel or Multichannel channel Strategy
Incorporate Live Chat Functionality
Optimize Your Website
Conclusion

1. Personalize Customer Experience

Photo credit: Sargis Zubov on Istockphoto.com

Besides training your customer service team to interact with customers, they must also learn how to engage and relate with them. Personalizing your customer experience can help you attract untold customer loyalty to your brand.

Maximize Customer Data Technologies

Ever thought about why modern email marketers always personalize messages like “Hey, Joe…”? It’s because they want to give them a human touch and stir up sentiments that would make you take action, inspired by the fact that they call you by your name and, of course, should have a good deal specially made for you.

Over 75% of consumers expect customer service agents to have visibility into their former interactions and purchases. Meanwhile, nearly 50% say agents only occasionally or rarely have the context they require to most efficiently and effectively solve their issue.

You can have better insight into your customers’ personalities and preferences through data gathered from their previous engagements or purchases. Bot Technology, location technologies, and various other solutions can help you gather pieces of information about a customer, treat them as individuals, and make them feel important.

Use location tracking software to know where they are and give them relevant details about delivery and your other business activities in that location. In addition, you can use the search history, favorite items info, or failed purchase data to personalize your customer service.

Pay Attention to Detail

Pay attention to the smallest details, even up to customers’ most insignificant comments and gestures (on voice and video services, respectively), and don’t act like they don’t exist! It will help your team to resolve customers’ problems better, satisfy them, and foster loyalty.

People will always be people. They don’t want another strict salesperson or service agent that only talks about sales and conversion: They’ve got that enough!

Take customer service outside the business terms and formalities: to have a rapport with your customers. That can form the basis of sentiments for which customers will remain married to your business, so to speak.

You could also offer a piece of information or two about yourself, find common grounds, and leverage shared interests and values. Doing that can help you to humanize the experience better.

Do what many other eCommerce businesses are not doing. Personalizing emails for your customers on their special events like birthdays and other anniversaries can also greatly add some human flavor to your rapport with them, remove pre-service prejudices, and increase satisfaction.

2. Be Proactive With Follow-Ups

There are several ways to be proactive with your follow-ups. They are described in detail below:

Follow Up Immediately After a Purchase

It is very important to reach out to customers within the day of their purchase or a few days later. This helps to make your brand or business remain evergreen in customers’ minds.

However, a lot of companies are not doing this. They mostly automatically send out deals and promos many weeks after purchase, and by that time, they are almost always late as customers may not receive such promos with enthusiasm.

Your free offers and best deals are most likely to garner more conversions if you present them when customers are still high in the euphoria of a fresh purchase. At such times, even if they don’t buy, they recommend the deals or products to others.

Follow Up Immediately After a Customer Service Engagement

Another way to keep customers engaged and evoke enthusiasm is by reaching out to them with a deal, discount, promo code, or reward points to thank them for engaging with your business.

For a customer to reach out to you, it means they want a better understanding of your business and its activities and want to connect better, and that must not be taken for granted. In the highly competitive business world, you want to end a customer service session on a positive and edifying note.

Follow up after An Issue Is Resolved

It’s often a common customer service mistake to put blame on customers or act like they are troubling you. Aside from the normal customer service ethics, it is imperative to reach out to them after a session as it assures them you didn’t just view their problem as another boring disturbance.

Reaching out after an issue has been resolved also helps you know whether they are satisfied with the service. You can achieve this through a feedback survey or an email to show the customer you value their satisfaction.

3. Use Customer Feedback To Improve Experience

Photo credit: Picture on Istockphoto.com

Requesting feedback should be one of your signature customer service activities. Whether positive or negative, feedback can help you make several adjustments that will result in better and more satisfying customer service.

You also need to measure your customer satisfaction to improve it. It helps you know whether the customer was satisfied and whether the interaction with them was successful.

Various methods can help you measure customer satisfaction. However, most businesses use the CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) because of how simple it is.

The CSAT is commonly used in customer satisfaction surveys, and it often includes the question about how satisfied a customer is with an experience, usually on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10. Customer feedback can help you save, as you’d know where to invest in and from where to reduce or retract your focus.

It also helps you know what your customers are thinking about your brand and products and arms you with relevant knowledge to make a difference.

Also, the NPS (Net Promoter Score) can help you know the likelihood of your customers recommending your business to others.

4. Employ An Omnichannel or Multichannel channel Strategy

Photo Credit: Blue Planet Studio from Istockphoto.com

An Invespcro statistic showed that businesses that operate omnichannel customer engagement systems retain 89% of their customers in contrast to a 33% retention rate for businesses with weak omnichannel systems.

Customers can be very volatile with their engagement and shopping preferences, and that can make them want to engage on a channel different from the one they used previously. Besides, customers’ preferences differ; one may prefer one channel to another, which necessitates a multichannel strategy.

A Multichannel engagement system allows you to interact with your customers using different channels, managed separately and with their respective strategies. However, omnichannel systems help to make sure the customers efficiently purchase items or connect with service agents.

For your customers to patronize your eCommerce business, it means they are very likely to be active across various social media channels. You’ve got to be there too! The idea is to be available—to be as close to your customers where they are.

What’s quite ridiculous is that more than 35% of customers expect to be able to reach out to the same customer service agent on any channel. However, it further gives credence to how invaluable a multichannel or omnichannel strategy can be.

Your business can greatly increase conversions through omnichannel marketing. After establishing your channels for contact, you must make your customers aware that they can reach you through those channels, and you must aim to provide top-notch customer service across all your channels.

5. Incorporate Live Chat Functionality

Photo credit: Ridofranz from Istockphoto.com

Live chat is now the top digital contact method for customers online, as a huge 46% of customers prefer live chat while just 29% prefer email, and 16%, social media.

Every modern eCommerce business should aim towards having a live chat system on its website to enhance communication with customers. That’s especially because incorporating live chat on your website helps you communicate with customers in real-time.

Live chat tools can help your sales team to connect with prospective customers as they browse your website. Your team can use them to get prospects to take action when they are still most enthusiastic about a product.

In addition, it creates another convenient channel through which you can reach out to people and vice versa—one that is on 24/7 and even AI-enabled, if you so desire.

CrazyEgg revealed that a good 38% of consumers have a greater likelihood to buy from a company that offers live chat support. Meanwhile, according to Emarketer’s discovery, 63% of customers had a greater likelihood to return to a website that incorporates live chat.

Patience is not a very common virtue among eCommerce buyers on average. They value their convenience and instant gratification such that they find a product quickly, place an order in a second, and expect it to be at their doorstep in a jiffy. And that’s why live chat tools are the closest match to such impatience.

According to Forrester, there was a 10% average order value increase in sales to customers who engaged in a chat before purchasing than those who did not. It’s also been found by ICMI that website visitors who engage with your business through live chat are 4.5 times worth more than those who don’t.

Another beautiful part of live chat is that it allows you to respond to as many as six customers at the same time—which cannot be said about the phone and email support with which you can only respond to customers one at a time.

However, suppose your eCommerce website is yet to have a dedicated support team. In that case, you can still use live chat and integrate them with chatbots to keep assisting and engaging customers until an agent is available.

6. Optimize Your Website

Photo credit: Milindri from Istockphoto.com

Here are several ways you can optimize your eCommerce website and checkout process to enhance customer support and achieve your business goals:

Have a User-Friendly Website

According to a study, 94% of negative website feedback was related to design. Your website must be easy to navigate for customers to enjoy their experience while browsing through your catalog for what they want.

You may like to know that a whopping 88% of customers online are less likely to revisit a website after a poor experience. That only validates the fact the internet may hand you many things but a second chance.

Work with professionals to build a well-organized eCommerce site that’s consistent with the latest trends. Leverage the most recent tools to make it aesthetically appealing and update it from time to time.

Want to see from customers’ eyes? Deploy a survey, or use review tools to know what your customers feel and what you may want to modify.

Optimize for Mobile

In 2018 alone, mobile eCommerce revenue constituted 50% of total e-commerce revenue in the U.S. Furthermore, a staggering 85% of adults expect the view of a company’s website on mobile to be as good or better on desktop.

Your mobile site experience must be tailored to meet customers’ mobile expectations, or at least come close. Reduce as many annoying pop-ups as you can, enable autofill across browsers, and scrap some unnecessary fields to enhance faster loading.

In the end, it’s all about making things easier and faster for your customers, and it pays off in greater brand loyalty and revenue.

Streamline Your Checkout Process

It may be extreme that 23% of online buyers would abandon their shopping cart if they need to create a new user account—because most eCommerce stores require that. However, it shows you that customers resent the least bit of stress during checkouts.

The checkout process on your eCommerce site should be made as simple as possible so that customers wind up on a positive note. Payments must be secure, and the shopping cart should be accessible from any page.

Quick takeaway: You may like to be as considerate as possible with your shipping and handling costs because, according to the North American Technographics Retail Online Survey, 44% of your customers would abandon their shopping carts due to high shipping and handling costs.

In addition, you can create a more comprehensive payment system to accommodate different customers’ preferred payment options.

Generally, an optimized website and a streamlined checkout process can reduce the number of complaints received by your customer service agents and, instead, increase satisfaction.

Conclusion

The success of your eCommerce business in 2021 greatly depends on good customer service. Carefully and consistently practice all the customer tips listed above and watch your business transition to the brighter side. Congrats in advance!

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