Amazon.com is extending its business loan program for small sellers later this year in eight more countries including China.
Until now, the e-retailer has offered the service only in the United States and Japan.
Now, according to the head of Amazon Marketplace, Peter Faricy, Amazon Lending, founded in 2012, now plans to offer short-term working capital loans in other countries where it operates a third-party, seller-run marketplace business,.
The scheme is being rolled out in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom as an “invite-only” .
Amazon offers three- to six-month loans of $1,000 to $600,000 to help merchants buy inventory. It makes money on interest and takes a cut of all sales on its marketplace, which now account for about 40 percent of total Amazon site sales.
Amazon said it has offered hundreds of millions of dollars in loans since 2012, with more than half of its sellers opting for a repeat loan.
Faricy said the company has become better at understanding the inflection points in a small or medium business where capital can make a difference.
“We know a lot about our sellers’ business and invite only those who we think are in the best position to take capital and grow,” he said.
Amazon uses internal algorithms to choose sellers based on the frequency with which they run out of stock, the popularity of their products and their inventory cycles.
