VANCOUVER, BC, July 19, 2021 - Merchant Growth, together with its funding vehicle, the Merchant Opportunities Fund, is pleased to announce the acquisition of the portfolio and business assets of Victoria, BC based, Company Capital Inc.
Company Capital Inc. has been supporting small businesses across Canada for their working capital needs since their inception in 2011. They share the Merchant Growth philosophy of open disclosure and a strong customer relationship management ethos.
David Gens, Founder, President & CEO of Merchant Growth notes: "We look forward to welcoming each and every Company Capital customer to Merchant Growth, and we commit to serving our new customers for a long time". Founder of Company Capital, Steve Clark goes on to say "We believe our customers will be well looked after by the Merchant Growth team".
About Merchant Growth
Merchant Growth is a leading Canadian financial technology company that specializes in small business financing. Over the past decade, Merchant Growth has supported Canadian businesses with hundreds of millions of dollars in growth financing. Using an innovative approach that includes the latest technology, complete transparency and thoughtful customer care, Merchant Growth is committed to helping make business financing easy to understand and accessible. To learn more, visit: www.merchantgrowth.com.
SOURCE Merchant Growth
For further information: Sean Watkins | Director of Marketing | Merchant Growth | 416.846.6900 | swatkins@merchantgrowth.com
With the easing of lockdown restrictions approaching, millions of small businesses are beginning to relaunch (hopefully we won’t end up backsliding but that’s another story all together). Let’s talk about some tips to help you grow your business in the COVID-19 Era.
Social Media Investment
Invest some time in your social media – Spend some time telling your customers about your offering, what you’re doing differently during COVID (maybe you’ve pivoted…maybe you haven’t), invite people in to your store, send people to your website to buy, etc. Spend some time requesting that people “like” your social media properties.
Here are 5 tips when creating your social media strategy for your small business:
- Plan your social strategy
- Research your Competition
- Build a Social Calendar
- Choose your Channels
- Determine your social metrics to track
Get Your Website Up to Speed
If you have a website, make sure it’s up-to-date, informative, easily found, and that people can purchase your goods and services online. Are you Googlable?
Google has indicated site speed (and as a result, page speed) is one of the signals used by its algorithm to rank pages. And research has shown that Google might be specifically measuring time to first byte as when it considers page speed. In addition, a slow page speed means that search engines can crawl fewer pages using their allocated crawl budget, and this could negatively affect your indexation (Moz.com).
Getting your website up to speed also effects your user experience, if your website pages have a longer load time they tend to have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page, which in turn will have negative affects on your conversion rates from the website.
Here are some of the many ways to increase your page speed:
- Enable compression
- Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- Reduce redirects
- Remove render-blocking JavaScript
- Leverage browser caching
- Improve server response time
- Use a content distribution network
- Optimize images
Spend Wisely
Growth can only be possible in business with costs that are well managed and examined. Take a look at your cashflow – Really do careful audits of your spending right now. Are there places you could be spending better? Maybe Merchant Growth can get a better rate than what you’re currently paying with the other guys on your small business financing.
Undeniably, owning and managing a business of any size can be demanding but with these tips, you can make sure that the hard work pays off and continues to keep your customers valued and your company's growth rising. We will keep more tips coming!
Should I Get Small Business Financing During a Pandemic?
The global pandemic has changed the landscape of many aspects of life, society, and the economy. Statistics Canada reported a contraction in the Canadian economy by 11.6% in April 2020, after a 7.5% drop in March. Overall economic activity was about 5% below pre-pandemic levels in February.
While most businesses in Canada were impacted by pandemic conditions and restrictions, small businesses in particular were hit hard. Small businesses were more likely to experience a decrease in revenue and have less liquidity to operate. Given that small businesses make up 98% of all employer businesses in Canada, it’s important to support small businesses through the rest of the pandemic and into recovery.
One option for financial support is small business financing. More accessible and flexible than traditional lending, small business financing offers a number of solutions depending on the business’s needs.
What is Small Business Financing and Why Does it Matter?
Small businesses often have a hard time accessing lending options from banks and traditional lenders. Alternative lending has risen in its place, a viable option for businesses seeking additional funds without the hassle. Small business financing, such as that offered by Merchant Growth, lends against cash flow and sales, as opposed to asset-based lending by banks, which can lend against real estate, inventory, and accounts receivable.
Small business financing typically utilizes technology to provide sleek and modern operations, offering a range of products to suit the diverse needs of small businesses, and can become trusted partners over the lifetime of a business.
Why Get Financing During a Pandemic?
Small businesses can face a number of challenges even during pre-pandemic conditions. With costs like rent, payroll, and utilities, business owners often find themselves without enough liquid cash. With the pandemic causing a decrease in revenue, these challenges can become exacerbated.
In order for small businesses to stay afloat during the pandemic, access to capital and maximization of liquidity are important. Many of the federal assistance programs aim to help businesses do this by providing funds to cover operating costs and generating cash flow. Wage subsidy programs allow business owners to retain staff and avoid mass layoffs while saving on the cost of payroll.
Aside from addressing capital needs, Neil Thompson, Head of Underwriting at Merchant Growth, also suggests small businesses look into unique opportunities that may arise during the pandemic. That includes inventory discounts and shifting business models to online operations or to a delivery model. In particular, businesses that stand to grow despite the pandemic, such as Cannabis retailers, or because of the pandemic, such as e-commerce businesses, would benefit from small business financing.
Whether it’s to bridge the gap that federal assistance isn’t able to cover, or to explore options to adapt and grow, small business financing can provide unique solutions for business owners.
What Makes Effective Financing?
The Harvard Business Review highlights the need for banks and policymakers to emphasize a streamlined process to get money to businesses quickly and efficiently. Their research also suggests that active outreach and relationship-building are more important for small businesses than simply responding to inbound requests.
At Merchant Growth, we pride ourselves in being Canada’s most convenient and accessible financing experience. When the pandemic first hit small businesses, our Support team reached out to existing clients to inform them of federal assistance programs. We actively worked with clients to gauge how their business has been impacted by the pandemic and made adjustments to their repayment schedule accordingly. As a result, we were able to help 651 customers with payment reductions, easing their burden until revenue returned to more regular levels.
The Path Forward
It’s clear that small businesses have been significantly impacted by the global pandemic. Revenue decrease, reduction in hours, and layoff of staff have all affected not only the businesses themselves but also their owners and valued employees.
While traditional lending and federal assistance can, and have, staunched the bleeding, alternative small business financing can go a step further to speed up the recovery. These solutions utilize technology, understanding of the market and client needs, and proactive customer service to provide business owners the most comprehensive support they need. So that businesses can go further than simply hanging on, but also take this multifaceted challenge as a way to innovate and grow.
Merchant Growth is dedicated to helping small businesses do just that. Our online application is simple and straightforward, and upon completion a sales representative will be in touch about the next steps. Financing is available within 24 to 48 hours. We look forward to working with you to overcome your challenges and become a trusted partner through the rest of your pandemic journey and well beyond.
Alternative Financing - A Life Line for Small Businesses
All small businesses across Canada share one common challenge - access to credit, and for multiple needs. The structure of Canada's financial services industry doesn't help the situation, with the dominance of the "Big Five" owning so much of the marketplace for operating facilities (operating accounts, etc.) yet failing to offer equal access to credit. This left the small business borrower with few options. At least until the advancement of financial technology (FinTech) and the emergence within the financial services lending industry, of these nimble, tech savvy small business lenders.
Today, this important sector provides significant amounts of credit every day to small businesses across the country. Within this peer group the established position of Merchant Growth at the forefront is for reason - a dominance of consistent lending across the sector for more years than anyone else in the peer group, a proven underwriting formula to consistently provide credit through challenging markets, including the 2020/2021 COVID situation, and a portfolio of not less than 100 sub-industry categories in which they serve.
With a value proposition of "quick and efficient access to credit, with transparency", the company repeatedly serves its customer base, often multiple times, with reliable access to credit.
Merchant Growth Offers Unique Products to Support SMBs
The development of the fintech small business lending segment has for many years been defined as progressive small businesses themselves, providing a single lending products. While in itself valuable, the challenge has been for the small business owner to understand the difference of these products, and often being presented at the same time to solve for a similar purpose.
With a track record now of financing over 10,000 customers across all provinces with over a half a billion dollars funded, we have supported small businesses in a very significant way. With the earning of many "Badges of Honour" along the way, Merchant Growth is proud of its position as the brand of choice for small businesses. Providing multiple products, trust, transparency and undoubted customer service, Merchant Growth continues to support small businesses who need short term capital support and a reliable partner to see their business succeed.
Merchant Growth, with a strong technological capability, built over many years of development and practical application, has a suite of products designed to meet the different needs of the borrower such as:
Flex Payment Options
Merchant Growth offers a Flex Financing Solution that turns your small businesses future cash flows into immediate working capital that you can use right away. Your payment automatically adjusts to match your small business’s revenue cycle. Your small business can pay more when you’re busy, and less when you’re not.
Fixed Loan Structures
Merchant Growth also offers a Fixed Solution, designed to align to traditional business flows as some business owners feel they’re in a better position to budget monthly expenses and future cash needs with payments. It’s ideal for small businesses who might not have debit/credit sales or those that prefer a fixed payment – same amount paid every period. A fixed daily payment is often better suited for small businesses that have sales which are primarily generated through cheques or deposits. Effectively a business loan, funds are provided to your business up-front, and a daily or weekly payment is made automatically to repay the balance, same amount every month.
Line of Credit
The Line of Credit gives Canadian small businesses the freedom to access capital to meet their growth potential. The line of credit has flexible payments, and interest is only paid on what you draw. The maximum line of credit amount will be 25% of the max qualifying amount that your business qualifies for and your business must be doing $20,000 in monthly sales and have been in business for at least 6 months as part of the qualification process. Merchant Growth’s Line of Credit minimum funding amount is $7,500 whether bundled or standalone. The line of credit is great for cash flow flexibility; use the funds when you need it and grow your business without having to take on large sums of debt.
From "Flex" payment options, to Term loan structures, to Lines of Credit, Merchant has a large following of different businesses with different needs all with different risk positions. This allows the Sales team to better solve for the customer's needs. And nothing is more important to us than solving for this.
Merchant Growth Mission is to Help Small Business's
Over the short, medium and long term life of a small business, the credit it uses to sustain and grow its business is hugely important. Leverage can be necessary and important, and so a reliable partner for access, and flexibility and for duration is hugely important. And while so many lenders demand fixed security, the Merchant Growth advantage enables the business to leverage its cash flows to secure credit, freeing up assets and providing flexibility. That’s a great Merchant Growth difference, and a role Merchant Growth always plays - remaining the most chosen partner in the private capital markets for working capital by small businesses.
