Amazon is throwing a big assist the way of its marketplace sellers, offering to fund their business expenses during the holiday shopping season. The company on Thursday announced “Amazon Lending,” a program that offers some sellers up to $800,000 in funds to help fuel what they believe will be increased product sales.
The Amazon Lending program is being offered through Amazon Capital Services and comes with interest rates ranging from one to 13 percent.
The program could expose Amazon to credit default risks but also serves to increase the company’s earnings since Amazon already takes a deep cut of product sales gross receipts.
According to Scot Wingo, chief executive of e-commerce advisory firm ChannelAdvisor:
“Some of these businesses are only constrained by cash flow” and “These spot loans will help these folks grow by getting them extra cash to buy more product.”
Amazon is not just throwing money at everyone who asks, the company is basing loans off client performance history within the Amazon marketplace.
According to a company email that was sent to potential Amazon Lending participants the money must be used to purchase inventory and increase sales through Amazon.com.
If approvaed through the Amazon merchant accounts application process the retailer has promised to deposit those funds in the seller’s accounts within five business days from the time of approval.
Monthly interest payments are deducted automatically from the Amazon seller accounts system which means sellers don’t have to worry about remembering payments unless they are paying their loan off at a faster rate.