Erik was still at university when his employer, Nic. Oud, asked him to take over a small packaging webshop. “I was a lead generator for them. For me, it was fun, starting my own business.” What began as €400 monthly revenue turned into €100,000 annually. “I thought, okay, it could be interesting to do e-commerce. I know how to do this.”

After graduation, Erik began as Key Account Manager at MyParcel. “It was still relatively small – fourteen people in a villa in Hoofddorp. We put 300 clients a month on the platform. The bigger clients were for me because it was easy to talk to them from an e-commerce standpoint.”

When MyParcel was bought by PostNL, Erik knew it was time to move on, but wanted to stay in e-commerce. “It could be interesting, and I knew how to do it. With Nic. Oud and MyParcel, I was able to grow in a safe environment while learning the tips and tricks in e-commerce. It’s an old-fashioned product and I wanted to push it further. Erik tapped Nic. Oud IT-team member Robert de Beurs and classmate from the HVA Florian Lem on the shoulders and stepped out for a beer. “We decided on bubble envelopes. It’s easy to send, it’s light, and there are eight sizes. At three o’clock in the morning, we thought, it was a good time to build the e-commerce website. We went straight from the bar to my apartment and started programming a new website.”

Erik established Luchtkussengigant.nl (this later became Verpakgigant.nl) 2 years in and focussed on the quality of the product before broadening the horizon. He reached out to the suppliers he knew were floundering in the wake of the takeover of MyParcel. The company grew, but it wasn’t able to sustain full-time employees until Thijs Bosgoed (mentor and CEO of BuyBay / Lucy), encouraged Erik to see how far he could take the company. “He said, ‘Just do it. Give yourself six months to build your own business, to be self-sustainable.’ That’s what I did. After six months I was able to afford my own salary.”

Verpakgigant began to thrive. “At the beginning of the pandemic, we had enough cash to say okay, let’s put all our eggs in one basket. Now we are the biggest distributor of bubble envelopes in the Netherlands. We do around 14 to 15 million pieces per year.”

With personnel primarily composed of successful interns who’ve grown with the company, Verpakgigant is currently serving over 18.500 clients within the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. “I like to call us, ‘Not the Old Fashioned Packaging Guy.’ It’s a really old-fashioned market. Usually, an account manager comes to you with a suit and tie and a brochure. But us, we’re the young guys on the block. We don’t need an account manager on the road. We’re doing things in a different and more cost-effective way.” Erik hasn’t met most of his clients, but he’s been able to develop a personal relationship with them through different online channels. He emphasizes that Verpakgigant does not focus on selling. “Instead, we focus on the right fit.”

The problem Verpakgigant faced was how to make that product accessible for a range of clients, including those with small to medium enterprises. “It’s not a sexy product. It’s an old-school product, but everyone needs it. We want to make it as accessible as possible, and as easy to order as possible.” With contracts on the table, Erik and his team decided to be fully transparent with pricing. “We publish tier pricing for our product on our website. It’s all out in the open. You don’t need to call us.”

Next came smoothing out the customer journey. “When you need to find a product, it’s impossible. With the standard search feature, you put in ‘cardboard box’ and it spits out ‘bubble envelope.’ It’s not related.” Erik committed to identifying a better way. “Most companies have a B2B portal that’s from the stone age. They can’t send out track and trace codes.” These systems are not integrated, preventing ease and creating a messy experience for customers. Due to their corporate nature, they aren’t able to adapt quickly enough to the ever-changing landscape of E-commerce. “We want to integrate some of the old players in the market to make our platform the kickstarter for other wholesalers. They can now use our API system to get their product on the market for a large audience. When we tell them our hosting fee, they say, ‘How is that even possible?’ We become a very interesting solution.”

Then came the question of sustainability. “It’s not always easy to see where the product comes from and what is a good choice. You’re supplying one-time packaging materials that are being thrown away instantly. Plastic uses less energy to be produced, but the end client perceives plastic as horrible. Paper is massively energy consuming to produce, but for the end client, it’s perfect to use.”

Verpakgigant’s solution? Direct, transparent communication with the client. “Let’s do it now, and place that in front of the client. From now on, all products will be 30% recycled at the minimum. We communicate that to our clients. But if they have a choice between a recycled version and a cheaper version, small to medium clients almost always choose the cheaper version.” Erik discovered the best way to encourage sustainable purchasing is to put those products front and center. “It needs to be cheaper, or it needs to be put in your face.”

As interest grew, so did Verpakgigant’s client list. And with this came invoice requests but Erik was hesitant to offer invoices as an option to new customers. “We were frequently asked if clients could pay with an invoice. They wanted to buy today and have fourteen days or 30 days to pay the bill. And we didn’t offer that. We didn’t know their track record, and often we couldn’t see if they had a CFO or a finance team. I thought, how can I fix this without putting my business at risk?”

Biller reached out to Verpakgigant for months before Erik responded. “I thought, who is Biller? I’ve never heard of them. Leave it. I remember when my second child was born, the representative from Biller was still emailing me.”

Meanwhile, the solutions Erik found just weren’t cutting it. “I was looking at Buy Now Pay Later Solutions from a number of providers, but nothing worked. Either they didn’t respond to my requests or their solution was aimed at consumers. It was one disaster after another.” “We thought, Are there any B2B processors? Didn’t I once see that in an email?” The next time Biller reached out, Erik responded.

The deciding factor was the chance for Erik to offer a form of invoicing without having to chase down clients. “It solves a lot of questions for us. It saves me a lot of overhead, here in the office.” Verpakgigant prides itself on finding answers ahead of the curve, and Biller offered a solution allowing Verpakgigant to offer financing without a finance department. “I never want a finance department. If I can automate things, I’m going to automate them. It saves a massive amount of time.”

Verpakgigant has seen a significant improvement in its business since using Biller. Not only did their average order value increase from €141 in 2022 to €178 in 2023, but 6% of their customers now choose Biller over other popular payment methods like iDeal, PayPal, Klarna, and Creditcard. Biller takes over part of the risk, eliminating the need for Verpakgigant to worry about credit control. This has been a game-changer for the company and has allowed them to focus on other areas of their business. “It’s clear that Biller is the hipster way of factoring”, and it’s worth considering if you’re looking to improve your business’s financial health.

When Erik assesses his journey from university to Verpakgigant, he’s able to identify the key factor is his success. “Surround yourself with the right people,” says Erik. “What they have been for me, I want to be down the line for others. Three years ago we started lecturing at our university, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, as a success story. Now I’m the person on the other side of the table, and I can relate to the students. I tell them, to connect on LinkedIn and send me questions. If you need an introduction, we’ll see what we can work out.”

Erik recently attended his high school reunion. “Back then, I was not sure what to do. But my classmates said, ‘Everybody could see this was in you. It needed to come out somewhere.’ This is the result. This is just the beginning.”

Before we talk about whether cross-border payments could be right for your business, it’s important to be clear about what the term means. The broad definition of cross-border payments is:

Financial transactions where the payer and the recipient are based in separate countries.

That is, the payments must cross a border in order to be completed.

It’s either because the buyer themselves has a preference, or because their Finance team does. After a purchase has been made, this needs to be reconciled and processed, and using the wrong payment method can cause buckloads of admin and reconciliation issues. Safe to say, whomever does the reconciliation usually has a say in what payment method to use.

Retail: these cross-border payments are typically B2C payments between a retailer in one country and a customer in another, or person-to-person payments with one sending money to another.

Wholesale: these cross-border payments can be between financial institutions such as banks, and can include borrowing and lending, foreign exchange, and the trading of equity and debt, derivatives, commodities and securities.

Cross-border payments are simple transactions and can be made in a variety of ways, most commonly through:

Cross-border payments provide a way for money to be paid in one currency, and received in another. For example, a buyer pays in euros, and the seller receives the payment in their local currency. Cross-border payments thus fill an important function, because different countries transact in different currencies. While the euro is accepted in several European countries, for example, other currencies are unique to their country of origin and can only be used in the home country.

For payments to travel across borders, there are different methods that can be used.

The simplest method available is payments between banks in different countries. This could be between two different banks, (Bank A and B) or between different bank branches within the same bank (Bank A1 and Bank A2). No actual money changes hands with this method. Instead, the bank of origin sends the amount from their account to the overseas account. You can see in figure 1 that a simple message is sent by one bank to another, and the transaction is complete.

Not all banks around the world have direct relationships with one another, so sometimes two banks in different countries need a middleman to make the transfer for them – one that has a relationship with each bank. This method is called correspondent banking, and it works in much the same way as method 1, but the initial payment is made to the correspondent bank (middleman), and then they make the subsequent payment to the final destination bank. As you can see from figure 2, this adds an extra step to the process, which can also add time and additional fees to the process.

The third cross-border payment method is the same as method 2, but with extra correspondent banks or middlemen involved. This usually happens when not-so-common currencies are used, and the payment has to go through more agents to get to its final destination. For example, transferring the euro to the Swiss Franc would most likely only need one agent, but transferring to a less common currency, such as the Iranian Rial or the Guinean Franc may require extra steps. As you can see from figure 3, this method involves the most steps, and therefore can be slower and more expensive than the previous two methods. At each stage, the payment messages must be checked to make sure that they adhere to local legal requirements to prevent crime, and each bank has to update the balances of the incoming and outgoing accounts – and with time differences across the globe, this can add to the time it takes and the transfer costs. The payment flow that travels through the involved intermediary banks is called the ‘country corridor’ or ‘payment corridor’.

There are several reasons for a business to consider cross-border payments, but the main one holds true for any business: revenue.

Offering cross-border payments means that your business can stay competitive in an increasingly global online market and expand into new markets where borders are no longer an issue.

Being able to accept cross-border payments means you can do business with anyone, anywhere that is right for your business, regardless of geography.

Other ways cross-border payments can help your business are:

1. Gain respect from your customers, showing you are a legitimate international operation.

2. Offer your customers the ease and convenience of paying in their own currency, as well as the transparency of seeing exactly how much their transaction will cost.

3. Spend less time and money troubleshooting payment issues.4. Improve your operational efficiency by tracking payments through the chain.

Sad to say, but B2B cart abandonment happens for a number of reasons – some reasons you have power over, and some you don’t. Sometimes, the buyer is doing the online version of “window shopping”. They add products to their basket without intending to buy. Sometimes, the buyer changed their mind.

Either they decided that they didn’t need the product, or their business requirements changed.

And sometimes, it’s because your website or checkout didn’t live up to the buyer’s expectation. Business buyers usually work through a long check list that you need to live up to, in order for them to complete their purchase.

You don’t need to worry about the two first reasons. They’re 9 times out of 10 out of your control. What you can control however, is your website experience.

Offering too few payment methods or not offering a buyer’s preferred payment method, can trigger B2B cart abandonment. While there are multiple payment methods available for B2B e-commerce, business buyers usually have a preferred payment method.

It’s either because the buyer themselves has a preference, or because their Finance team does. After a purchase has been made, this needs to be reconciled and processed, and using the wrong payment method can cause buckloads of admin and reconciliation issues. Safe to say, whomever does the reconciliation usually has a say in what payment method to use.

This is why the payment methods you offer at your checkout matter.

Research shows that 90% of business buyers check the payment methods you offer before they start a purchase, and 48% have abandoned cart because their preferred payment method wasn’t available. Giving business buyers multiple payment options means that they can choose the method they prefer, and they’re less likely to abandon the cart.

B2C e-commerce advancements have raised the bar for B2B e-commerce. Up to 90% of business buyers expect the same shopping experience when making a business purchase as when they make a private purchase.

This means that your checkout experience needs to be simple, fast and frictionless. Otherwise you risk buyers abandoning the checkout. Unfortunately, most business websites don’t meet these criteria. They still require an account to see prices or make a purchase, and multiple checkout steps to be completed. The fewer steps a buyer needs to take to buy from you, the better.

Forcing a buyer to create an account as part of the checkout process can cause cart abandonment. And we’re not talking about setting up a trade account here, we’re talking about a standard user account without credit or monetary value. This is because forcing someone to set up an account delays the purchase, even if your account setup process is done in minutes.

Unless there is a specific benefit to setting up an account, or your business is legally obliged to have buyers create accounts, let business buyers check out as guests. Trust that if buyers have a good experience buying from you once, they’re more likely to return. If your business doesn’t have legal obligations to set up accounts,

Hidden fees can trigger cart abandonment. And when we say hidden fees, we mean fees that aren’t shown upfront to a buyer when they research a product or service. They’re the kind that are added to the final stages of the checkout as “extras”, like shipping and processing fees, or additional taxes.

The fees themselves aren’t the issue – it’s that they’re not disclosed upfront when a buyer does their research. No one likes unexpected costs and even when these costs are small relative to the actual purchase amount, they can still leave buyers feeling deceived. Business buyers want transparent pricing. Transparent pricing gives an accurate view of what the total price for purchase will be and makes it easier to budget the purchase. 

Plus, it instils confidence in your business. If you don’t show pricing upfront in your shop, consider doing so. It can be as easy as creating a single landing page that showcases all the extra fees that will be added to the purchase, both for domestic and international purchases. Cart abandonment is less likely to happen if your buyers know the full cost of purchase from the start. No one likes nasty surprises.

Sometimes, stock errors or limitations cause cart abandonment. These cause frustration. If business buyers have done their research, found a product they need, ensured that they can cover the cost of the purchase, filled out all the details at the checkout, only to find that they can’t order the amount they need…? That’s an issue.

After all, why would someone complete a purchase if they can’t buy the amount that they want? It’s unlikely that they’ll get part of their order from one place, and then the other part elsewhere. While stock errors can be out of your control, quantity limitations, like minimum or maximum order quantity, aren’t. There might be legitimate reasons why there are stock limitations, but if so, let your buyers know early on in their purchasing journey, so that they can decide whether to buy from you, or go elsewhere.

Your competitive landscape can trigger B2B cart abandonment. In most industries, there are numerous competitors offering the same services or products as you do. And buyers look for the best option, whether that’s finding the best price, their preferred payment method, a quick checkout experience, or the best payment terms. If your shop doesn’t meet expectations but your competitors’ do, then you risk losing buyers.

The good news is that staying on the same level as, or even ahead of, the competition is within your control, mostly. And if it isn’t, you might need to find other ways to compete. Can’t do anything to adjust prices? Maybe what differentiates you is your online experience or the payment methods you offer? There are numerous ways to compete in B2B e-commerce today, thanks to technology and the data available.

What you really need is to know what business buyers expect and need from you, and then you can work towards meeting those expectations.

For businesses struggling with cart abandonment, B2B Buy Now Pay Later addresses a number of pain points highlighted in this piece.

Offering B2B Buy Now, Pay Later, you add an additional payment method to your arsenal. This gives a new payment method for new potential buyers who don’t want to open a trade account or use a credit card, and that are looking for this kind of way of buying.

Implementing a B2B Buy Now, Pay Later solution means conducting quicker credit checks, and removing a few frustrating steps that a buyer needs to go through without it, without adding admin to your plate. Buyers don’t have to wait for days to complete a credit check or account opening, and assuming the credit check is verified, they can buy immediately from you.

With B2B Buy Now, Pay Later you can keep one step ahead of your competition. Buy Now, Pay Later for businesses is a relatively new payment solution, but one estimated to have the same impact on B2B sellers as B2C retailers have experienced.

While you might never completely achieve a cart abandonment rate of 0%, you can go a long way by making adjustments to your online store.

Review some of the improvement suggestions we’ve listed in this piece, or look further into whether B2B Buy Now, Pay Later can remove a number of pain points straight away. Regardless of what you do, it’s worth working to improve your cart abandonment rate and increase your conversion rate.

Biller is the first Dutch B2B BNPL solution in the market and it’s now integrated with the Pay. payment platform. The two Dutch payment companies have one goal with their cooperation: to offer the best and safest Buy Now, Pay Later payment service to businesses across Europe. Research by Thuiswinkel.org shows that more than 20% of business buyers aren’t able pay with their preferred payment method. This is largely because many business buyers don’t have the option to buy on invoice online, despite it being the most commonly used payment method offline. This means a huge difference from their personal consumer experience. This difference can ultimately lead to a lower conversion rate.

B2B buyers are ultimately also consumers. And they’re used to a great B2C experience where they can pay in seconds and get the product the next day. The B2B experience on the other hand is often cumbersome. Usually, an account has to be created to buy at all, lower credit limits apply and it can take days after signing up before a purchase can actually be made. Business buyers deserve, and now expect, an optimal user experience and a simple payment method. This is one of the main reasons why Biller was founded. Derek Vreeburg, Biller Co-founder & Managing Director, is enthusiastic about the new collaboration with Pay:

“In the consumer market, more and more people are using Afterpay and Klarna, but an option specifically developed for the business market was not yet available. That is, until we set up Biller a year and a half ago. It’s great that the founders of Pay. want to offer our payment method through their platform. Now anyone who wants to can offer our B2B BNPL payment method to business buyers with just a few clicks.”

The extra payment convenience and speed you gain with Biller via Pay. is enormous. Offering BNPL payment methods can lead to a conversion increase of between 10 to 30%. Although Biller has only been around for 18 months, Menne Mennes, Pay. Chief Commercial Officer, says it makes no sense to wait any longer to offer Biller on the Pay. platform:

“B2B BNPL provides many advantages for both business buyers and sellers. It’s extraordinary that we have not yet had a ‘user-friendly’ solution for this in the business market. After all, we have long known that a good user experience for payments increases conversion. This can be of great benefit, especially in the business market where large sums of money are often involved. Solutions like Biller are desperately needed.”

Vreeburg agrees, and is pleased that the payment experts at Pay. know the market so well that they immediately recognised the importance of using Biller, and adds:

“Other Payment Service Providers sometimes have a somewhat wait-and-see attitude, but Pay. doesn’t. They have enough in-house knowledge and experience to determine what their business customers need.”

The partnership between Pay. and Biller is going to bring major benefits according to Mennes:

“Pay. already has a large reach with thousands of customers across Europe. Those businesses can now add Biller as a payment method with just a few clicks. Biller’s reach and brand awareness will grow rapidly as a result. But of course, this collaboration is also important for Pay. We always do our best (and usually succeed) to offer the most innovative payment methods to our customers. Buy Now, Pay Later for businesses is an absolute must-have, so we are very happy to be the first PSP in the Netherlands to offer Biller’s services. Ultimately, we do this to satisfy our and Biller’s customers, and I think we have been very successful. But do test this payment method yourself and let us know what you think.”

Biller is the AI-powered B2B Buy Now, Pay Later service designed to simplify buying and selling online for businesses. With Biller, businesses can make online purchases quickly and securely, without having to pay straight away. And sellers can sell their products without worrying about credit risk or late payments. Established in 2021, Biller brings the convenience of paying later from the consumer market into the business market. From its headquarters in Amsterdam, Biller is revolutionising BNPL payment options for the business market with a total transaction value estimated at €600 billion in Europe. Biller has been part of the Banking Circle ecosystem since January 2022.

Pay. completely relieves businesses of all payment worries, allowing them to focus on their core business and achieve further growth. That way, Pay. not only facilitates payment, but also creates the smoothest and safest possible sales experience for businesses and their customers. With a higher conversion rate as a result. Pay. is a reliable and smart partner that processes hundreds of thousands of payments every day.

As a seller, this change in buyer demands means your business will need to adapt and offer attractive digital purchase options to stay competitive

Enter B2B Buy Now, Pay Later.

B2B Buy Now, Pay Later (B2B BNPL) is a type of short-term, interest-free financing that lets business buyers delay payment or spread the cost of a purchase over time, while the seller gets paid straight away.

More and more businesses are using a B2B BNPL payment method to buy things like materials or products for specific projects or jobs, office supplies, light fixtures, home office furniture, laptops and business services.

B2B Buy Now, Pay Later works just like it sounds – a business buyer buys something now, and then pays for the purchase later.

Practically, at the checkout, it looks like this:

1. Buyer adds a product in their basket

2. They choose Buy Now, Pay Later as their payment method

3. At the time of checkout, the buyer doens’t pay anything for the purchase.

4. You process the order as per normal and then ship the product to the buyer

5. The B2B BNPL provider pays you the total that you’re owed – minus fees – so that you don’t have to wait for payment or chase late invoices

6. The B2B BNPL provider then collects the full payment from the buyer at their chosen payment date.

The benefit of B2B BNPL is that buyers can buy what they want, when they want it, interest-free, and not worry about things like cash flow, credit card APRs or applying for trade credit.

You’re making it easy to buy online from you.

And at the same time, you don’t have to take on any of the risk or the manual admin. You get sell to those who want to buy from you, get paid for every purchase, and hand off the admin of credit assessment, setup and invoice managing to the BNPL provider.

While Buy Now, Pay Later has been around for a while in B2C, it’s a fairly new in the B2B world.

If you’re wondering whether B2B BNPL is for you, you’re not alone.

With anything that’s new, there comes uncertainty. Plus, you might already be offering trade credit, invoices, credit card or other payment methods.

The good news is that you don’t need to change anything that you’re already doing – you can keep your current payment methods and just add B2B BNPL as an additional payment method in your checkout.

The good news is that you don’t need to change anything that you’re already doing – you can keep your current payment methods and just add B2B BNPL as an additional payment method in your checkout.

This way, you’re not changing anything for those customers that like how things are now,  but you’re offering a new option for existing and new customers that want to buy now and pay later.

You may be undecided about BNPL, but this payment method will remove your need to chase late invoices, stabilise your cash flow, and even reduce your cart abandonment rate!

B2B BNPL comes with a range of benefits.

1. Simplify your checkout process

On average, 60% of business buyers abandon cart because of a long checkout process.

A long checkout process looks like:

– Manual credit checks that take days to complete

– Needing to set up an account in order to buy

B2B BNPL simplifies the checkout process by automating credit- and fraud checks, making it accessible to buyers that don’t want to use a credit card or apply for and get a trade account set up.

2. Always get paid on time

On average, it can take up to 53 days from the time you issue an invoice until you get paid.

Not getting paid on time can hurt your business.

That’s close to 2 months

With B2B BNPL, you get paid straight away and the BNPL provider takes on the risk of late or unpaid invoices. This could be a game changer.

3. Wave goodbye to admin work

Completing repetitive administrative tasks can be a real time-suck.

Approximately 50% of B2B businesses spend 6 to 10 hours a month managing payments. That is 1.5 days spent on payments alone, and doesn’t include:

– Account setup
– Credit checks
– Onboarding
-Chasing late invoices

With B2B BNPL, you can leave this kind of admin behind, and hand it over to you BNPL provider.

4. Grow your customer base

B2B buyers come in all shapes and sizes, from medium and large sized companies to small businesses, startups, and the self-employed.

Including BNPL as a payment method in your online shop can make you more inclusive to the different types of B2B buyers out there. When you have several and flexible payment options, you can cater to more buyers and grow your customer base, without increasing operational burdens.

Late invoice payments cost your business money, and risk putting you in danger of missing payments yourself.

And late invoice payments have become a bad habit for many. The average invoice term is 30 days, yet many businesses try to put off payment for longer if they can.

Keeping their money in their bank account for as long as possible means that they are able to use it for other things, like buying new material or equipment, or paying even older invoices.

If your invoice terms don’t come with an incentive for early or on-time payment or a penalty for late payment, your buyers’ motivation to prioritise the payment can be low.

Perhaps the email address was wrong, the total wasn’t checked properly, it was sent to the wrong department, or you didn’t marry up the purchase order number with the invoice. There can be endless administrative reasons that invoices are missed or not paid on time.

It’s ironic, but you and your buyers have the same objective: to maintain cash flow and keep your businesses running steadily, and ideally, growing.

But, you have opposing ways of achieving this.

You keep your cash flow going by getting paid as quickly as possible, ideally straight after a purchase has been made. 

Your buyers, on the other hand, keep their cash flow going by paying you as late as possible. The two don’t go together, and one will always lose out where the other gains. Unless, you offer a solution like

B2B Buy Now, Pay Later is a service that allows your business buyers to make a purchase today, and pay at a future date.

Your buyers are most likely already familiar with the concept from shopping as consumers. Research even shows that 77% of B2B buyers want the same experience making business purchases as they have when buying consumer goods.

When used in a B2B situation, Buy Now, Pay Later is incredibly effective at solving the problem we discussed earlier – helping both you and your buyers maintain a stable and predictable cash flow.

This is because, the BNPL provider pays you quicker than 30 days, for every purchase made.

When using a Buy Now, Pay Later service such as Biller, you get paid on time, every time. No late payments, no chasing anyone. Payment is usually made within seven to 14 days. And sellers are able to grow their customer base, while the third-party service takes on the risk and responsibility of screening the buyer and ensuring they make payment.

And buyers can choose to delay their payments for up to 90 days, so they can make the purchases they need and still maintain their cash flow.