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The modern consumer prizes convenience and flexibility more highly than ever before. 

They expect their online shopping experiences to be seamless and work for them, so it’s no surprise that consumer finance options are being adopted by an increasing number of retailers.

The benefits for the consumer are obvious — they’re able to buy the products they want when they want them — but what are the consumer finance benefits for business owners?

Consumer finance FAQs

Let’s start with some questions business owners regularly ask us:

How much does it cost to set up consumer finance for my business?

It doesn’t cost you anything to set up an account with Duologi.

Our 0% interest finance product comes with a subsidy cost, but we can help you identify exactly which solution is right for your business.

Is my business eligible?

All we ask is that you’ve been trading for at least 12 months, have a turnover of at least £250,000, as well as a positive balance sheet. However, we always do everything we can to make sure retailers can offer their customers fantastic consumer finance options, so get in touch and we may be able to help you even if you don’t match the above criteria.

If you want to offer your customers a range of payment options (and we recommend that you do) you may require an FCA license. Find out more about applying for your license here.

Is Duologi secure?

Your customers expect the highest standards of security when shopping with you online, and for that reason making sure Duologi is secure has always been one of our top priorities.

Our systems are frequently audited, while we also regularly carry out third-party testing for vulnerabilities.

Benefits of consumer finance

Here at Duologi we believe that offering a wide range of consumer finance options delivers a range of benefits to ecommerce businesses. Here are three of the most significant:

1. Attract more customers and drive more sales

If you sell mid-to-high ticket products and don’t offer any form of consumer finance option you’re putting a ceiling on how many customers you can generate each month. After all, there’s always going to be someone who can’t afford to buy from you then and there. They may have to save up over a period of months, or simply find a retailer who does offer finance.

A study conducted by Forrester Research in 2019 found businesses offering finance sell 20-30% more than those that don’t, but it’s not only the volume of sales that increase — the value of those sales increases too.

According to BigCommerce, order size increases by 15% for businesses offering flexible finance options.

2. Increase customer retention

With so much choice on offer to them, consumers are discerning when it comes to offering companies their repeat business. Delivering experience-led customer journeys can lead to almost 2x higher year-on-year growth in customer retention and repeat purchases.

If you offer your customers convenient and flexible payment options, it’s much more likely they’ll return when they need to make a repeat purchase, and they might also recommend you to friends and family.

3. Get paid faster and increase cash flow

Once a consumer is approved for the finance required to purchase the product, payment to you is processed quickly. This makes a massive difference for a retail business’ cash flow, particularly when you consider that you’re making more frequent and larger sales.

4. Offload the risk to someone else

If you’ve implemented consumer finance solutions for your online retail store from a provider like Duologi you’ll not only receive payments quickly, and in full, but you’ll also be offloading all the risk to someone else.

Once a customer has chosen to buy a product from your website you get the money up-front — it’s up to us to reclaim the money from them. You won’t have to risk your business’ cash flow to support financed sales while, as we already mentioned, you only pay a subsidy cost on each sale — there’s no ongoing cost for offering our finance options.

How to get started

Are you interested in offering your customers flexible and affordable consumer finance solutions? It couldn’t be simpler to get started with Duologi.

We offer solutions for both online and brick-and-mortar retail stores, either separately or together as part of a multi-channel strategy. We’ll work with you to identify the best option for your business so we can maximise the customer experience.

Our solutions include:

Financing with 0% interest, payable over a certain number of months. Note that our payment terms range from 3-60 months on purchases between £150 and £15,000.

Interest-bearing finance with competitive levels of interest to cover your subsidy costs.

Ready to start offering flexible payment options that work for you and your customers, or thinking of switching from your existing finance provider? Book a free consultation with the team here at Duologi.