E-commerce
La Petite Épicerie recounts its fundraising experience
E-commerce
"Karmen was able to anticipate the future that the bank was unable to estimate".
Médéric Mille is the co-founder of La Petite Epicerie, an online hobby shop that has become a brand in its own right. La Petite Epicerie is a veritable Ali Baba's cave for DIY (Do It Yourself) lovers. With more than 10,000 references, you will find everything you need to create without limits.
La Petite Épicerie used Karmen financing to address its inventory challenges in response to strong growth in the company's B2B/wholesale division. Indeed, the SME has a strong growth on the B2B part, which requires to produce more and more stock upstream. In addition, retailers such as Cultura and Monoprix require 60-day payment terms. This requires La Petite Épicerie to tie up cash by anticipating its production almost 3 to 4 months in advance.
For example, if La Petite Épicerie takes out 100,000€ of cash in January, it will receive the merchandise between April and May and will then deliver to the retailer's warehouse. The retailer, on the other hand, will pay La Petite Épicerie only in June.
As a result, this creates a significant cash flow gap of about 5 to 6 months between the time the SME starts producing and the time the customer starts paying.
La Petite Épicerie needed short-term financing to support its future productions for new brands.
La Petite Épicerie decided to trust us for its financing for several reasons.
The first reason La Petite Épicerie turned to us was because they were dissatisfied with the financing solutions offered by their banks.
Indeed, the banks have not been able to meet their financing needs. This is largely due to the two years of COVID, which have particularly disrupted the activity linked in part to La Petite Epicerie's physical stores.
In contrast, Karmen's credit team was able to take into account B2B customer purchase orders when the bank was only able to take into account invoices. That made the difference, because today, La Petite Épicerie's business and growth are based on orders, reservations and forecasts of future inventory correlated to the B2B retailers' purchase orders.
Following this feedback, La Petite Épicerie chose us for their financing. The process took about three weeks from the day they learned about Karmen to the day they received the funds. This fast, flexible and non-dilutive financing met their expectations to the point that the SME wishes to renew this collaboration for future creative productions!
La Petite Épicerie recommends Karmen to businesses looking for financing to meet their cash flow needs simply and quickly. In fact, at Karmen, we place particular importance on understanding the needs of ambitious entrepreneurs like La Petite Épicerie in order to best support their growth in a dynamic, flexible and timely manner.
