Ankorstore: How one of Europe's leading B2B marketplaces started offering flexible payment terms at checkout

If you’re not already familiar, Ankorstore is a wholesale B2B marketplace that connects over 12,000 independent brands with more than 200,000 boutiques, retailers and e-retailers across Europe. They are growing rapidly and recently raised $283 million in Series C which will help them deliver in their mission to build the operating system of independent retailers.

Ankorstore is passionate about making life easy for their customers. They pride themselves on providing all the right tools and technology on a single, easy to use platform, making it simple for retailers to discover and stock a variety of authentic brands at great prices, whilst brands can sell directly to boutiques at minimal risk. So everyone wins! 

Since partnering with Hokodo, Ankorstore has been able to improve their service by offering flexible payment terms on their platform. Hokodo’s full support with real-time buyer eligibility assessment, credit insurance and collections has meant: 

• Retailers get a seamless online checkout experience - even on their first purchase.
• Retailers can Pay Later (30/60 days) and Pay in Instalments (3 or 4 instalments).
• Brands receive payment in full upon delivery of the goods.

Giving customers what they want 

Nicolas D’Audiffret, Ankorstore’s Co-founder & CEO, knew that offering flexible payment terms was a crucial part of meeting their customer’s needs: “Trade credit is very important in our B2B market… It is a very compelling proposition for our retailers to have a Buy Now, Pay Later option.”

As a pioneering, tech-savvy company, they were also intent on providing a frictionless user experience for their customers and replicating the B2C-like purchasing experience that B2B buyers have come to expect. “A great user experience at checkout and great payment terms are what our customers are looking for”, says Ankorstore’s Chief of Staff Pierre-Luc Joffre.

So, they knew what they needed. In a nutshell, great Payment Terms for their retailers as a key driver of loyalty on the platform and to increase their customer's frequency of visits, conversion rates and average basket size.

‍Keeping it simple ‍

Nicolas considered other options such as invoice factoring to solve the problem, but decided it was too complex and would detract from the customer’s online journey: “Factoring was not simple enough. We like to propose simple solutions for our brands and retailers, and that’s why we chose the solution proposed by Hokodo.” ‍

Hokodo’s powerful APIs and close collaboration with Ankorstore’s tech team ensured a quick and simple integration into Ankorstore’s UK platform which was completed in a single tech-sprint within one week. 

Ankorstore is now able to make real-time decisions on a customer’s creditworthiness, meaning retailers can shop on their platform as normal and then access flexible payment terms at checkout, even on their first purchase. 

On the other side of the marketplace, Ankorstore’s merchants are also paid in full upon delivery of the goods, which entirely removes credit risk and gives them the resources to focus on growing their businesses. 

This ability to help both retailers and suppliers has played a crucial role in Ankorstore’s success, allowing them to build up a strong base of more than 200,000 loyal customers across Europe. ‍

“It’s about building the offer which makes it cheaper and easier for everyone to do business on Ankorstore”, says Pierre-Luc. “Payment terms are definitely one of the key pillars of our business model which prevents anyone from doing business outside of our platform.” ‍

Bigger baskets, more often‍

Nicolas has seen first-hand the effect this has had on Ankorstore’s performance: “We did some testing and we can see that when we propose better payment terms we can increase the average order value (AOV). We know that when we cannot propose payment terms to some customers, we see a decrease in the conversion rate.”

‍Pierre-Luc also said that being able to offer payment terms in real-time at checkout has brought a number of benefits:  “We definitely see the impact on conversion rate, also on the frequency of purchase and the basket value. I think the biggest value Hokodo has brought to us is helping us grow an extremely loyal customer base thanks to Payment Terms.” ‍

What’s next for Ankorstore? ‍

Ankorstore have already established themselves as one of the leading B2B Marketplaces in Europe, but they are even more ambitious for the future. “The plan is to continue to grow extremely fast across all of Europe”, says Nicolas. 

They also want to continue to innovate and improve the service they provide to their customers, and Pierre-Luc sees Hokodo playing an important role in this process: “Hokodo have been very supportive of all our crazy ideas in terms of innovation! Our goal is to reach a 100% acceptance rate for our retailers on our platform, and we have already made good progress towards that objective.” ‍

With the two companies having worked together so effectively already, the future looks exciting as they both strive to push new boundaries and set new standards in the world of B2B e-commerce.

Find out more about Ankorstore and Hokodo's Buy Now, Pay Later solution in our video here. 👇

To find out how Hokodo can help you increase your B2B sales and offer payment terms to your customers online in real-time, get in touch.

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