Halfords Group PLC, the UK’s largest leading provider of motoring and cycling products and services, has launched a credit product for its trade account customers. Personally, I have never set foot into a Halford store before, but the merchant is selling everything from car parts to new and second-hand bikes for your children. They have also partnered with Klarna, enabling their consumer customers to finance a purchase.
Besides the consumer business, Halford also serves more than 250,000 small business and enterprise customers. With the Halford Trade Card, these business owners were already able to participate in deals and discounts, and therefore, Halford could ensure to be the partner of choice for many of these businesses.
Halford is now partnering with Kriya (previously MarketFinance) and is enabling their trade account customers to finance their purchases. Cashflow is one of the biggest challenges for mechanics and tradespeople, who often have to purchase various car parts and keep them in stock until a customer needs that specific part. With the Kriya-powered solution, the business owner can receive these items first and pay for them at a later point in time, ideally when he is able to sell the item to their own customer.
The interesting part about the credit offering is that it does not only work on the Halford website but also in the offline store. Initially, a business owner has to apply and get approved for the credit product. After that, he can use the credit either on the Halford website or in one of their stores. I would assume this is an important key element in making the credit product for Halford and their customers.
Halford also highlights that the new embedded finance offering increases the efficiency of the overall business since many of the existing trade credit processes will be automated, thus improving the speed and quality of the customer experience.
