When bicycle purchases surged during the pandemic as people flocked to new outdoor activities, many bike dealers were frustrated by strained supply chains and tight access to capital.
Bicycle manufacturing—which relies heavily on foreign providers—was shut down for months and
One company getting squeezed was California-based e-commerce bicycle-parts firm Intense Cycles, which faced sudden demand from new and existing B2B customers. The problem was that most were asking for special financing terms that went beyond the site’s routine credit card acceptance.
“Flexible payments have always been top of mind for us, but this increased demand further accelerated our need to extend credit,” said Michael Ford, Intense’s director of finance and operations.
After a search, Intense connected with Kansas-based MSTS, a global payment and credit solutions firm that recently retooled its own platform to speed up the time needed to provide instant-credit options from third-party providers like Bread.
MSTS’ solution could be implemented quickly and customers didn’t feel like they were being routed to a third party; the new options were added to the bike-supply store’s checkout page under its own brand.
“It creates the look that customers are getting a line of credit directly from Intense, which reinforces their relationship with buyers,” said Brandon Spear, MSTS’ CEO.
Because Intense Cycles had no bandwidth to expand its bookkeeping department, MSTS’ platform also handles credit underwriting and risk management, plus invoice presentment and accounts receivable through its cloud-based platform.
“It’s like an accounts receivable department in a box for smaller B2B enterprises that need fast help,” Spear said.
B2B e-commerce has been on the rise for the last several years, and MSTS in the last four years expanded its reach globally. The 12-year-old firm's business has doubled in recent years as more enterprises seek creative financing options for B2B customers, according to Spear.
Recent improvements in cloud infrastructure have enabled MSTS to radically cut the integration time required to add its solution to a business' website.
“Before we had this level of cloud technology, it could take 90 to 180 days to onboard a B2B customer, then we got it down to two weeks, and now we can do it in a week or less,” Spear said.
The cloud-based platform also enables faster access to capital. MSTS' solution cuts the process of funding loans to 48 hours instead of waiting weeks the cash infusion, which was the case just a few years ago.
The expansion of quicker tech integration and rapid funds-routing is solving B2B problems that a few years ago could have spelled the end of a company, Spears said.
“The need to move fast makes a huge difference in situations like the pandemic—and in any industry subject to unexpected spikes. We were already working in this direction before COVID-19, but customers never needed services so quickly,” Spears said.
