What the holiday season means for credit

The holiday season is quickly approaching and that means it will soon be the busiest season of the year for many of your clients. Most businesses are preparing for the influx of sales from Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the end of Q4 leading up to major gift-giving holidays like Christmas and Hanukah. As Holiday shopping ramps up, businesses have been increasing their inventory dramatically.

What does this mean for you?

While this may not apply to the service-side business customers, your retail customers are most likely investing a significant amount of money right now in the months leading up to the holiday season. By growing their product stock for the holiday rush, they will be looking to negotiate more flexible payment terms or delay their payment to account for the pre-season costs.

What should you do?

While these businesses may be strapped for cash leading up to November and December, it won’t last long. Once shoppers head out to make their holiday purchases, your customers will have plenty of cash on hand to pay off outstanding debt. The one problem is you are not the only person trying to get paid. This means you need to assert yourself as someone they will want to prioritize. The goal is to get on your delinquent customer’s payment schedule. Make your business a priority so that you receive payment between November 15 and December 15. Chasing the debt after December 15 will be unsuccessful because many employees will be away for the holidays and it will be significantly easier to push payment off until the beginning of the year.

If you are in the middle of a debt collection campaign, emphasize the importance of paying the debt when there is an influx of cash flow. Check with your sales team to see when they last visited the delinquent customer . They most likely will have an insider insight to their stock levels and current order quantity. Remember to always do your research first before getting on a call with a customer.