The Fed Fund Rate is currently sitting at 4% (up from 0.25% just 1 year ago) and the US is experiencing its most aggressive rate hiking cycle in four decades. With Treasury Bonds yielding close to 5%, many in the Amazon Seller community are starting to ask what these increased rates will mean for the cost of financing for Amazon Sellers.
The short answer is YES. As the cost of capital goes up across the board, those increases will start to impact financing for Amazon Sellers.
Risk vs. Yield
Over the last few years, funding has poured into the eCommerce space driven by investors seeking greater risk-adjusted returns. As less risky investments (like US Treasury Bonds) increase their interest rates, there is less incentive for investors to make slightly riskier investments to generate a slightly better return.
Financing Costs Tied to Benchmark Interest Rates
Nearly all large financial institutions investing in or purchasing Amazon Sellers borrow their capital from larger institutions. Most Amazon investors' financing is tied to benchmark interest rates like LIBOR or a similar mechanism.
For example, an aggregator or Amazon Seller financer might have loans from a bank or hedge fund where the Amazon Financier's cost of obtaining funds is something like LIBOR + 6%. So, when LIBOR was 0.25% last year, an Amazon financing company may have had a cost of capital of 6.25% (0.25% LIBOR + 6%) on loans they were making for 15%+ but now that LIBOR is at about 5% that same financier is paying 11% on the capital they use to make their FBA Loans or Amazon Seller Investments. This increased cost of capital across the board will eventually be passed on to Amazon Sellers seeking financing if they are not being passed on already.
The best thing an Amazon Seller that is thinking about raising capital in 2023 can do now is to secure capital now before rates increase further and start to get passed on to final borrowers.
A few weeks ago, Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients that they now anticipate the Fed boosting the key rate to a range of 5% to 5.25%, up from the previous call of 4.75% to 5%.
While rate increases do seem to have decreased Amazon Aggregators' ability to finance acquisitions at large multiples, rate increases don't seem to have fully caught up to the financing for Amazon Seller's market but they likely will soon. Another option many Amazon Sellers are taking advantage of is AccrueMe's interest-free funding.
AccrueMe's profit-share model allows Amazon Sellers to access growth capital without worrying about interest rates. That is because AccrueMe shares in a Seller's Gross Profit (Amazon Sales - COGS - Amazon Fees - PPC) rather than charging a fixed interest rate like an FBA Loan. To learn more about how AccrueMe can help finance your growth like they have with so many other top Amazon Sellers, visit AccrueMe.com
About AccrueMe®
AccrueMe provides success-based financing for Amazon Sellers. With decades of experience in lending, AccrueMe's leaders have created a completely new way of providing capital, powered by a proprietary portal built around leading-edge eCommerce technology. With unprecedented line of sight into business data, AccrueMe’s portal simplifies financing for online retailers in a way that was never before possible: based entirely on sellers' success, and repaid when best for the seller, and not based upon a pre-determined schedule. Ecommerce retailers have built their businesses on the latest technology, we believe they deserve financing from a partner that's powered the same way. AccrueMe: cutting edge capital for eCommerce. Learn more at AccrueMe.com