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Shopify Capital review: Funding solution for small businesses?

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By Sam Nguyen

CEO Avada Commerce

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Shopify Capital is known as a cash advance program as well as a small business loan. This program which is just available for Shopify users is super important for developing businesses. In addition, until now, it is just available for the location of these shops should be in the United States. This Shopify Capital service allows the store owners to expand their business with the supported funding. However, it is limited, which means that not all online sellers can approach to this source of loan.

Let’s read Shopify Capital review: Funding solution for small businesses? to understand how Shopify Capital works for your Shopify shops. If Shopify store owners do not meet enough conditions for the cash advance program of sellers, their solutions are listed at the end of this article. If you are a person who uses Shopify and you think you have enough condition or you wanna take benefit of the service in the future. This post will surely be helpful.

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About Shopify Capital

About Shopify Capital

What is Shopify Capital?

Shopify took part in some Internet-based services in order to provide the consumers with financing choice by launching Shopify Capital in April of 2016. Shopify Capital which is designed in order to provide financing for the small business such as the finance help services that Square and Paypal have been offering. The person who uses their grade of sale services or uses Shopify’s eCommerce platform in order to save their website can get a merchant money advance, and they do not need to go through the bank or to get the standard loan.

Shopify Capital is a part of the money advance, part of a small business loan. It is vital to attend this problem is only usable to businesses, which are created by Shopify users. In addition, this service only presently available with organizations in the United States, and maybe then, Shopify is merely making Shopify Capital usable to choose a few of the consumers at the moment. The business has declared, in the future, it will expand this service, but at present, it is defined.

Shopify Capital eliminates or reduces the major drawbacks while offering the best things that are a part of cash advances and small business loans. Shopify Capital advances cash with small businesses and permit them to pay owed by supplying Shopify a percentage of the sales instead of having a common loan and that request collateral, paperwork the monthly paying back plan.

You do not need to pay interest, and there is no minimum paying back to made or a limited time-frame to repayment. You can understand that there is no late fee and the money advance, which will not influence the profit of business through accrued interest. However, there is a charge that is fastened with a loan amount that is about 11 percent money advance.

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How does Shopify Capital work?

Shopify will offer a choice of the different amounts or remit for who is eligible for funding. Shopify Capital glossary of terms remittance rates of merchant cash advances will be the reference for any online sellers. From their requests about the advance amount, you will be approved the right amount for you, and Shopify Capital would deposit the funds via bank account.

It will be automatically remitted to Shopify Capital with a fixed remittance rate of your daily sales whenever you make sales until Shopify Capital receives the total to remit or the amount of the future sales revenue that you agreed before.

Shopify Capital: Pros & cons

Shopify Capital Pros & cons

Using Shopify Capital has both advantages and disadvantages. We can list down all the effects to users as below.

Pros

  • Suitable for local businesses
  • Provide relaxed consumer certifications
  • Support with competitive terms and costs
  • Easy to apply

Cons

  • Limit just for Shopify users
  • Expensive costs

To sum up, eCommerce professionals as Shopify is the best for entrepreneurs to provide the most effective shopping carts. Everything is available for you, and it is easy for you to utilize and provides virtually whatever you need to run an online store. However, if right now, you do not have sufficient factors to use Shopify, there is another reasonable option for you to choose is low-priced company financing.

Shopify Capital: The difference from loans, cash advances

Shopify Capital: The difference from loans, cash advances

Two definitions of these terms loans and cash advances will make some people confused. In this paragraph, we will bring you an explanation for their differences.

Cash advances is also a form of a short-term loan or a cash advance. As a kind of financial product, they share almost the same features, but there is very little difference between them. If you have a loan, you have to meet 60-day repayment milestones, while cash advances do not require you to meet these repayment goals.

Generally, cash advances have many advantages such as no collateral funds, and they can take their time paying them back. In contrast, in some cases, they cannot pay an advance back immediately, it would be a severe drawback. Because the interest rates for cash advances are very high, it can be right for the lender who takes a large amount of advance secure. Or even sometimes the interest exceeds the original advance if they delay the payment of a loan back as quickly. In addition, the fees that lenders charge change depends on a particular time frame, so it is so risky for them when an advance is not paid off as quickly as possible.

Different from the cash advances, banks usually are places that business loans owe money, they may find that it requires many papers and checking the credits. For people who have a not good credit history, they seem not able to lend for their business. These organizations have to pay interest as well as repayments on schedule if a loan is approved. In case the loans can be hard to obtain, they might have to put down collateral. Even if when payments are made on time, they also need to pay some fees.

Shopify Capital is a kind of cash advance that provides a merchant a fund that does not involve interest rates, processing fees, and late payment fines. When there is an issue of collateral, credit worthiness does not influence them. They also need to find some services if they cannot get a business loan from a bank or cash advances.

Shopify Capital review

Shopify Capital review

Shopify Capital Borrower requirements

The current main criteria for eligibility as below:

  • The shop’s location is in the United States.
  • The risk of your business is low.
  • Your store has Shopify Payments and enables with another third-party payment provider.
  • There is a certain amount of sales in your store.

Moreover, all US states are available with Shopify Capital merchant cash advances, but there are some selected US states that Shopify Capital loans are available. Now it is continuously assessing for online sellers to request Shopify Capital to make offers of funding. If your store isn’t eligible now, then it might be in the future. In case there is no email from you receive an email from Shopify Capital, congratulation you are eligible to request funding. In case there is no email that you can have, the Shopify admin can know that they are not approved with their funding offers.

Shopify Capital Application process

Right after you are eligible for funding from Shopify Capital, there is an invitation that allows you to pick up available funding options on the Homepage.

Shopify store owners should follow those steps:

  • The first step is clicking the Request under the offer that you want on your Home page including the invitation.

  • Then you should check all the terms for the application and click Accept terms.

  • Next entering all the required details on the Apply for Shopify Capital page, and then click Next.

  • At this step, just enter the bank details in the Add business bank account section, and then click Next.

  • To finish, just review your information and choose Apply for offer on the Under Review funding details.

You will achieve an offer from Shopify admin if you are enough conditions for funding from Shopify Capital. If you tab on apply, then it usually takes 2-5 days for the application to be solved. After you are accepted, within two days, you might get the money in the business bank account. Shopify Capital provides temporary fundings as well as a temporary service payment in the kind of merchant currency advances.

You will look little differentiation between two products, in fact, although these financial products differ because of trivialities. There is a notice that before the application is approved, it can be necessary for you to submit additional documents that will be notified by email.

Shopify Capital Term and Fees

Below is the Terms & Costs area and understand what to predict when online sellers get breakthrough or finance from Shopify. For Shopify Capital, there are some terms and fees such as:

  • Borrowing Amount: $400 – $500,000
  • Term Length: No maturity date
  • Factor Rate: 1.1 or 1.13
  • Origination Fee: None
  • Effective APR: Learn more
  • Collateral: None

Although Shopify store owners do not need to charge interest rates of Shopify Capital, the borrowing fee will be calculated.

By using a factor rate, Shopify can calculate a fee depending on your borrowing amount. They will determine how much you will repay by multiplying the amount borrowed with a factor rate either 1.1 or 1.13 and then Shopify will come up with the repayment. For example, for the amount of $10,000 you are borrowing, you will pay back to Shopify from $11,000 ($10,000 x 1.1) to $11,300 ($10,000 x 1.13).

Shopify collects this amount by deducting a percentage of your revenue each day instead of paying a fixed sum each day or per month, which is called as “withholding rate” or “remittance rate.” This rate can be higher or lower 10% depending on cash flow. The amount of collected cash also can be fluctuated so that you do not need to have a set repayment date. Just keeping this daily cut simply, Shopify will collect them until they get their total repayment amount.

To compare to other services, the borrowers can want to calculate the annual percentage rate (APR) in spite of the fact that cash advances do not need to charge technical interest.

Shopify Capital Customer support

One of the best things that Shopify Captial can provide is their customer service. It is available via all devices such as phone, email, or live chat. In addition, support through phone support is 24/7.

It is said that Shopify’s customer service is diverse based on the general Shopify review. Almost all of them satisfy with their service but some customers have been frustrated with their customer supports. The solutions for multiple problems can be found in Shopify’s forum. Online merchants also can improve their knowledge base by some articles about Shopify Capital.

Shopify Capital User reviews

On much mainstream news such as Recode, Business Insider, VentureBeat, and PYMNTS, Shopify store owners can have reviews about Shopify Capital. Besides, there are some case studies that Shopify has on their website. However, reviews coming from independent customers are scarce.

Positive reviews

You can find down some features that people like about Shopify Capital such as:

  • It is simple to apply this service
  • It is a relatively inexpensive financing service
  • Easy to keep track of online reports
  • There is a repayment fluctuation depending on cash flow

Negative reviews

Besides, there are some people who do have good experiences with Shopify Capital are minimal. They are scarce, but they also expressed trepidation.

For example, Shopify Capital is considered a financing service that is non-traditional, so that its concept is not understood enough. Or even it can be a little confusing on its website when Shopify uses careful “legalese” wording. For small entrepreneurs, Shopify Capital is a little expensive, and APR can reach 30% when they have to repay the capital in about a year.

Conclusion

Because of eliminating the main difficulties on the lending funds, Shopify Capital is one of the best solutions for small business. Compare to a standard loan, Shopify Capital advances lets them pay back their loans and cash advances instead of requiring paperwork, collateral, and monthly repayment. In addition, Shopify merchants can apply this tool easily with automatic daily withdrawals.

Hopefully, this article Shopify Capital review: Funding solution for small businesses can help you understand about working of Shopify Capital in your business. If you have any questions, let’s leave a comment below.


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.