businesscashadvance.co.uk

Small and smaller businesses are calling us daily to arrange business finance. It seems there are few alternatives around and while we look specifically to provide growth capital to the micro business community we’re also seeing some slightly larger, multiple location service sector operators applying for our funds.

This is welcome, but we will continue to focus primarily on the owner managed, lifestyle businesses in the hopsitality sector, car service sector and hair/beauty industries.

We are heavily committed to providing funds to help grow businesses in these industries and recognise that during tough times a fresh approach is needed and available through our Business Cash Advances. Good businesses please apply, but please be aware we are not a lender of the last resort, far from it!

It feels like it’s been a bleak and drawn-out winter. Today, however, is the first day of Spring and gradually a little bit of good economic news is filtering into the media and hopefully a little bit more confidence is returning.  We’re getting people applying to us for Business Cash Advances rather than Funding Grants or Business Loans from Banks owing to the speed of decison and also the simple application process. Typically Restaurant finance, Hotel funding and Equipment loans seem to be driving the up-turn in activity.

January started quite slowly as the Christmas and New Year hang overs cleared away. The pace picked up dramatically about half way through the month and we’ve finished strongly. Seasonal funding and general cashflow needs, being the foremost reasons for our clients taking on new advances; specifically restaurant funding, hotel finance, hair salons and car service centres using our money as expansion capital. Overall activity is still very strong and demand for Business Cash Advances continues to increase monthly as this alternative to a traditional, unsecured business loan becomes better understood. The Business Cash Advance is becoming a more mainstream option as a funding solution for small businesses (very small businesses) in particular.

I thought I’d take the opportunity of the New Year to offer up some ideas to anyone interested that might be wondering how people used our Business Cash Advance product recently.  December was somewhat surprisingly our busiest month to date and the start of 2011 shows no sign of slowing down. Some of our customers in December 2010 used funding from us for the following projects:

Restaurant Finance: Several new customers used Business Cash Advances to refurbish and extend their existing restaurants, quite a few used BCA’s to sort out burst pipes following the big freeze, the speed of delivery being extremely important in these cases, with remaining open for Christmas and New Year critical. Others used our cash to establish new locations to add to their multiple-restaurant portfolio.

Garage Finance: We funded quite a few service centres that wanted to buy new diagnostic equipment prior to the VAT increase on January 4th, but couldn’t get lease finance quickly enough. Several new applications were processed from body-shop garages owing to an increase in trade (weather!) and tyre centres used our Garage Funding BCA’s to increase their stock of winter tyres (sensible stuff).

Hair Salon Finance: We have been busy processing applications in this sector so that Salon owners had funds in place for refurbishment and re-modelling of their salons in January which is historically a little quieter than the rest of the year and a good time to have a little down time with the builders. One of our more regular Salon owners used a BCA to take on a fifth salon (I remember when he only had one, he seems to have used our BCA’s very shrewdly).

Dentist Finance: As usual this sector used our money to re-model surgeries and to buy equipment (the VAT rise was quoted several times).

Retail Finance:  We were very active at the beginning of December as we had been in November proving BCA’s to allow retailers to purchase seasonal stock for the run up to christmas and also for the post-christmas and early January Sales. Particular mention can be made of the e-retail environment which remains a sector that we are happy to work with.

Pub Finance: We processed quite a few emergency requests (turning several around in a couple of days) owing to weather related damage. In these cases we act as a sort of insurance claim bridge, providing cash almost immediately while claims are being processed. Quite a lot of Pubs also applied with a view to refurbishment in Jnauary (there are a lot of Pub Kitchens and Restrooms being re-built as I write!)

Hotel Finance: The seasonal nature of this sector means December is often quite busy with Hoteliers applying for funds to allow for refurbishment and extensions which they carry out in January and February; this year was no exception and the start of 2011 has seen a significant increase in Hoteliers and B&B owners applying for Business Cash Advances for this reason.  They take our cash during the quiet months and have usually pretty much paid back the BCA by mid-summer.

Hope this was interesting; we’ve got many other uses of funding that we could list but how long can a Blog be?

www.BusinessCashAdvance.co.uk

I’ve just read an article by Prof Richard Thaler of Chicago University which suggests binge drinking in the UK is promoted by the tradition of buying a round of drinks where the group is greater than 3 people! Apparently being polite and stepping up for one’s round is the cause of much social unrest.  In my local NOT buying one’s round tends towards social issues!

However he did suggest an alternative would be to run a tab, and settle up once the group has had sufficient, this might actually be a useful way of allowing the drinkers to use their debit/pre-paid cards rather than cash and offer up a gratuity to the bar operative (which under traditional payment methods is rare!)

Either way, we at Business Cash Advance support sensible, socially responsible drinking habits whichever method of ensuring everyone has a good time is adopted.

Although the weather has definitely challenged most retailers and service sector micro-businesses our customers tell us that their short term forecasts for early 2011 is for the overdue re-investment in their businesses to begin.  Kitchen equipment, refurbishment of customer and staffing areas and website enhancements are a few of the many different uses of funds we are currently seeing from applicants for Business Cash Advances. Restaurants and Food Pubs seem to be more prepared to spend on an upgrade in the first quarter of 2011 than they were in 2010. Our product provides them with the funding solution to finance the costs associated with refurbishment and enhancements to their business model.

The press are today reporting that demand for funding from within the SME sector is not as slow as the high street banks have been reporting, but the lack of funding growth has more to do with the banks’ appetite for lending.  The demand for Merchant Cash Express’ Business Cash Advance would support this.

Seems the extreme weather has had a positive impact on our local High Street retail clients and also the members of the hospitality section within our client base,  the past week has seen an increase in the cash-flow received by these sectors, above expectation.  One may assume that those who couldn’t get to work in the bad weather, or those who had to look after the kids while the schools were temporarily closed used the opportunity to visit the local shops and have a bite to eat in the local. We’ll be interested to see if this trend continues through to Christmas Day.  For those of you who were stuck in traffic for several hours as a result of the snow, we know how it felt!

Over 60% of small business owners recently surveyed on eBay blamed the major banks “failure to lend” as the most important factor in limiting their opportunities to grow and invest.  Often, apparently, stock finance is unavailable.  Am I missing something here?  Why aren’t these e-retailers seeking alternative ways of getting loans?  Here at Merchant Cash Express Ltd we have designed the Business Cash Advance to specifically address this problem for small businesses in this growing and exciting sector. So, come on, all you members of the e-commerce entrepreneurs society and check us out.  Try www.BusinessCashAdvance.co.uk and see how we can unlock cash according to your future cash-flow allowing you to invest in more stock for sale through your virtual credit card terminals!

I was delighted to read about the Sunday Times “Manifesto for Small Business” and was finally glad to see the smaller non celebrity entrepreneur get some coverage. Whilst I agree with the five points in the manifesto I believe that point number 3 “Make Banks Lend” is by far the most important aspect to support small businesses who currently struggle to obtain Grants or Loans to enhance their growth potential.

However, this can only be good news for those of us already providing alternative ways to finance your business.  Although the Business Cash Advance is relatively new, it has now been around long enough to prove it’s worth as a direct substitute for a small business loan. with October 2010 being a record month in the product’s short history any frustrated business owners should consider applying for a Business Cash Advance if they feel their traditional provider of funding may not be as happy to receive their application.

We also have a Renewal rate of over 80% which means that once customers see how well our financing product works they come back again and again. This saves you the hassle of filling out new loan application forms every time you need new capital in your business.