The multinational giant Amazon has been growing from strength to strength. In 2017, for example, its total global sales reached a reported £124.6 billion (31% up on the previous year), and profits reached a staggering £2.1 billion (compared to £1.7 billion in 2016), according to a story by the BBC on the 1st of February 2018.
Amazon for businesses
Part of the company’s growth has been fuelled by its recent objective of becoming a “one-stop shop” for the purchasing requirements of small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) around the world.
According to Amazon, that business model offers the advantage of:
- reducing procurement costs for businesses through the invoicing of payments to multiple suppliers;
- reducing the administrative time spent in essential purchasing processes;
- establishing a single Amazon account which consolidates purchasing and so improves a company’s monitoring and control of expenditure;
- providing management tools for the reconciliation of invoices received for purchases;
- expanding the options by which companies may reach business solutions with their suppliers; and
- maintaining a confidence in and a familiarity with the Amazon brand name.
Amazon loans
If you want to incorporate Amazon into your supply chain, the resourcing changes that need to be made may also demand access to additional external funding – in other words, additional borrowing taken on by your company.
Purpose-designed Amazon loans may provide the answer you are looking for.
Amazon loans
It is unlikely to take a huge amount to set up an Amazon Business account and test for yourself some of the advantages of accessing this supply chain.
Loans of £50,000 or less may be all that you need to establish that initial account and, if the solution looks to be delivering the promised benefits, further Amazon loans may be available to help you make the most of the arrangement.
The key here – as with many of your short-term borrowing needs – is likely to be flexibility in setting up your Amazon loans and making the repayments as they fall due.
Instead of continually juggling with variable APRs, for instance, you are likely to be after a single fixed cost of borrowing, which you know from the outset and which you may factor into your cashflow projections as repayment instalments need to be made. If there are initial temporary hitches in your making those repayments, it is going to be helpful to have a certain period of grace or an extension of the repayment term, without incurring any financial penalty or additional interest charges.
Above all, perhaps, and to ensure an essential supply chain to work in the way that you need it to, any Amazon loans have to be delivered to your company bank account in as short a time as possible.
You are likely to be looking for a streamlined application process, therefore, which allows a more or less immediate decision in principle for any loan, followed by a speedy consideration of your formal application. If that meets with the necessary approval, you might then expect the transfer of the requested funds within the next 48 hours or so.