Industries we fund · Retail Stores

Working capital for retail businesses

Retail is an inventory game: the money you make in Q4 is committed in Q3, and a missed buying window is revenue you never see. Banks do not move at merchandising speed.

Clearwater places retail files with funding partners that already know the industry: $10K to $2M, sized off your real bank deposits, with no hard credit pull to apply. Searching for retail business loans? What we place is revenue-based funding - an advance repaid out of daily deposits - and this page explains exactly how it prices so you can compare honestly.

How funders read a retail file

Retail files price off card-heavy daily deposits, and funders read the calendar with you: inventory builds before peak seasons are the classic use, and a file that shows last year's seasonal lift supports a bigger advance ahead of this year's. Blended card-plus-cash books are normal; what hurts is unexplained deposit cliffs. If a location closed or a channel shifted online, say so - context a human can verify keeps a file alive.

What retail businesses use the capital for

  • Seasonal inventory buys ahead of peak
  • Opportunistic bulk purchasing when a distributor discounts
  • Store refresh or fixtures
  • Bridging the gap between holiday buying and holiday revenue

What the numbers look like

Most files support roughly half to 1.4 times monthly bank deposits - where a file lands depends on deposit consistency, time in business, and existing positions. As an illustration only: a retail business depositing $50,000 a month might see an advance around $45,000, repaid as about $283 per business day until a fixed $59,400 is paid. The total is fixed on day one - it never compounds or grows - and most deals carry prepayment discounts, shown with your offer.

Advance range$10,000 - $2,000,000
Monthly revenue floor$10,000 in business deposits
Time in business6+ months
CreditCash flow weighs more - scores from 450 workable
To applyNo hard credit pull. 4 months of statements + month to date

Retail Stores funding questions

When should a retailer apply - before or after peak season?

Before, if the capital is for inventory: your trailing months still show last year's pattern, and the advance converts directly into your strongest selling weeks.

A lot of my sales moved online. Does that complicate things?

No - ecommerce deposits (Shopify, Amazon, Stripe) read the same way card batches do. What matters is that the deposits land in the business account you show us.

How much could a store qualify for?

Most files support roughly half to 1.4 times monthly deposits, where the file lands depends on consistency, position load, and time in business.

See your number, not a sales pitch

Two minutes, no hard credit pull, and the estimate is sized off your real deposits.

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