When Australian eco-lifestyle online retailer Seed & Sprout was looking to expand, it turned to Wayflyer’s financing to fuel growth.

The fast-growing e-commerce business, based in NSW’s Northern Rivers region, sells 24/7 across global markets. But CEO Rebecca Williams was perplexed by the challenges of working with traditional financing sources. Mainstream banks, for example, were still requiring in-person meetings.

“Wayflyer was by far the most responsive provider in the market; its due diligence was just as robust as the Big Four, but it delivered your funding faster than a traditional bank could schedule an in-person appointment in a branch. When you’re an e-commerce business growing at scale, you can’t afford to deal with a conventional funding model that hasn’t evolved in 30 years.”

That speed mattered. Williams recalls the exhilaration of achieving her first $1 million month in sales – and the reality check that came immediately after: Repeat stock purchases had to ramp up to fulfil soaring orders.

“Wayflyer was the difference between keeping pace, which enabled us to land our first $2 million month less than six months later. Rapid scale is exciting, but it strains cash flow; we couldn’t have grown 300 per cent plus year on year without the team at Wayflyer.”

She describes the company as “fast, customer-focused and invested in your success. Having an account manager that really cares is a huge point of difference in a ‘sea of same’.”

The bottom line? “As a product-based business, the difference for us between a traditional bank and Wayflyer would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost sales.”

The cash-flow crunch every e-commerce brand knows

E-commerce growth brings a particular headache: The cash conversion cycle, the lag between paying suppliers for stock and actually receiving revenue from sales.

“That gap creates substantial cash flow strain, especially for businesses growing quickly,” explains Wayflyer Australia head Pat Bolster. Rapid growth creates a larger strain on cash flow. So rather than looking at what a company has done in the past – and obviously that’s an important factor – we focus on how they are going to serve their customers in the future and attract new ones.

Where banks pore over credit histories and balance sheets, Wayflyer predicts where it’s headed in the next six to nine months. “We’re often funding companies we believe have growth potential,” says Bolster.

Wayflyer provides working capital and charges a fixed fee, which is recouped via a percentage of sales or a fixed daily/weekly repayment, typically over a six- to nine-month period.

Unlike interest-bearing loans, repayments flex with revenue, aligning risk with actual sales performance.

Seasonality, volatility, and the BFCM test

For e-commerce companies, cash strain peaks around seasonal demand – boardshort brands in November, for example. Wayflyer’s clients span fashion, beauty, cosmetics, and health supplements, sectors that account for about 60 per cent of its portfolio. Customers range from $20,000/month startups to $300 million/year enterprises, although 95 per cent fall under the $30 million SMB umbrella.

This year, Bolster notes, tariffs and global volatility made brands hesitant to commit to the upcoming Black Friday, Cyber Monday peak shopping season early. “As a result, people seem to have been reacting a little later this year, as they’ve been unsure about what their US business is going to look like.”

That means many are forced to airfreight stock to supply customers, which is fast but expensive, but still allows them to make the most out of the peak season. “There will be quite a need for cash right now, all brands, because they’ll also need to pay the premiums for air freighting stock,” says Bolster. 

Why debt isn’t a dirty word

The idea of debt still makes some entrepreneurs uneasy. But Bolster argues that opportunity cost should be part of the consideration.

“If they have tried to fund stock themselves and they run out of stock after a sale period, then an opportunity cost has been left on the table,” he says. “That leaves them asking if they would have been better off taking advantage of funding the Wayflyer way.”

Put another way, using only cash reserves may feel safe, but it can also cap growth. Strategic funding – if structured carefully – creates a runway for expansion without overextending risk.

“Every business has its own risk appetite,” Bolster acknowledges. “Everyone’s got to make their own decision for themselves, in a way that’s safe; not overextending their business or their cash flow.”

Wayflyer models cash flows with customers to test repayment capacity under different scenarios. The goal is to ensure funding supports growth without tipping into stress.

Beyond the bank model

Wayflyer’s edge is rooted in its deep e-commerce focus. Traditional lenders may view a young brand with little credit history as too risky. Wayflyer, by contrast, leans on data about customer acquisition, retention, and lifetime value to assess potential.

“We’re really interested in how an organisation attracts and keeps customers and getting predictive around that, and what they’re going to do over the next six-month or nine-month period,” says Bolster.

This makes the model especially powerful for high-growth online sellers who may lack conventional collateral but boast passionate customer communities.

It also reframes debt as a growth partnership rather than a burden. Repayments scale with sales, and funding terms are aligned to a company’s sales cycles, whether seasonal or steady.

Rethinking risk and reward

For many founders, the word “debt” still carries stigma – a relic of old-school financing where rigid repayment schedules and interest accumulation made borrowing painful. But the e-commerce world is changing that narrative.

Debt, structured smartly, becomes a tool to smooth cycles, capture opportunities, and accelerate growth. From a burden, it shifts to a bridge.

As Bolster puts it: “Debt is one of the tools businesses have access to that fuels growth, whether it’s expanding markets, developing new products or fuelling sale periods, businesses need to understand what the appropriate tool is to help fuel this growth.”

Craft Club: A lockdown hit that kept growing

When Sydney entrepreneur Nakisah Williams launched Craft Club – a DIY craft kit business – demand exploded almost overnight. Lockdowns had Australians searching for new hobbies, and Craft Club’s colourful, Instagram-friendly kits became a hit.

But success brought a new problem: Keeping up with orders. “How do I keep enough stock to meet skyrocketing demand without straining cash flow?” Williams recalls. Traditional financing wasn’t an option for a young brand with no long credit history. 

That’s when Wayflyer stepped in. Instead of running out of inventory and missing sales, Craft Club secured financing, stocked up, and kept momentum. The results: 300 per cent growth in just a few years – and an ongoing partnership with Wayflyer that ensures inventory challenges never block opportunity.

This is a case study that underscores a counterintuitive truth: For fast-growing e-commerce brands, debt isn’t the villain. When structured smartly, it can be the difference between stagnation and scale.

• For more information about Wayflyer, take a look at the company’s website.
• For more information about Seed & Sprout, visit here.