In an article by the Mail & Guardian at the end of 2016 they stated that: “If you were a coffee snob on a road trip in South Africa 10 years ago, you would have faced long stretches of drought. You would have been miserably beverage-less in much of the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Limpopo, only adequately catered for in Jo’burg and Durban, and greeted by a few fledgeling coffee roasteries in Cape Town.” This is no longer the case thanks to businesses like Cape Coffee Beans.
South Africa has seen a growing number of coffee-orientated businesses pop up over the last few years. With what started off as just a spattering of good quality roasters, coffee shops have risen as a niche in the restaurant business and the consumption of coffee in emerging markets has increased rapidly. According to an Insight Survey Report, in 1993 traditional markets consumed 67% of the world’s coffee, while emerging markets consumed 12%. Twenty years later, traditional markets consume 50% and emerging markets consume 19%.
It’s out of this context that Cape Coffee Beans began to grow into a leading online store. They provide access to fresh coffee beans, and the necessary coffee apparatus to make a good cup of joe, to every corner of South Africa. Our urban city centers are no longer the only places privy to good coffee – Phaedon Gourtsoyannis, founder of Cape Coffee Beans, has helped make sure of this. He has taken his eCommerce experience and combined it with his love for coffee to create a prosperous and ever popular online coffee store
As Cape Coffee Beans grew in popularity Phaedon knew that while he was meeting the need for accessibility to good quality products he needed to continue to improve the convenience of that access. It was at this point that he reached out to Lulalend for funding so that he could invest properly in coffee equipment inventory to dispatch orders to customers quicker, and provide a better customer experience.
At first he approached traditional lenders like banks, but despite a positive credit rating it was next to impossible to get an overdraft as a foreign national and the company’s director. Banks require business owners to hold a South African ID and there isn’t any easy solution to getting around this requirement. When business decisions need to be made quickly and action is required immediately, trying to jump through hoops before the bank will extend access to credit can be a huge cost to business growth.
Phaedon soon became aware that Lulalend’s desire is to help small businesses prosper across South Africa by providing access to funding. With our easy online application process and fast access to business funding Phaedon has been able to make business decisions that have had him see an 87% year on year growth since becoming a Lulalend client.
“Lulalend not only made it possible for me to get access to the funding I needed for inventory purchases but their application process was easy and uncomplicated. It is completely online so I could do it from anywhere at any time and it took me no more than 10 minutes. A response to my application was also remarkably quick and I received the funding I needed within 24 hours – that’s unheard of with traditional lenders.” Phaedon Gourtsoyannis, Founder of Cape Coffee Beans
Phaedon’s first credit facility went straight into purchasing inventory, which helped Cape Coffee Beans over a busy December period. Since then Lulalend has become working capital finance for Cape Coffee Beans. The business takes out a new credit agreement at the beginning of each month to ‘refinance’ and uses Lulalend’s funding as an overdraft of sorts. With the successful repayment of each advance, Cape Coffee Beans are able to obtain a better funding cost as their credit profile with Lulalend improves.
To learn more about Cape Coffee Beans visit their website here: www.capecoffeebeans.co.za
