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How Kriya is Fuelling Halfords’ Trade Credit Solution Across Channels
Goal
To consolidate offline, online, and in-store transactions under a single credit-management platform
Region
United Kingdom
Industry
Retail and Automotive Services
The Challenge
Prior to Kriya, providing consistent trade-credit terms and payment flexibility across these channels was time-consuming and complicated.
The Solution
Halfords can now offer a frictionless, flexible, and unified purchasing experience to its business customers.
Halfords—a leading UK retailer of automotive, cycling, and leisure products—needed a flexible payment solution that would empower their business customers to buy now and pay later across multiple channels.
Partnering with Kriya to offer Trade Credit, Halfords seamlessly extended trade credit to business buyers through:
By consolidating offline, online, and in-store transactions under a single credit-management platform, Halfords can now offer a frictionless, flexible, and unified purchasing experience to its business customers.
On-Premise Retail transactions in 350+ store locations
Prior to Kriya, providing consistent trade-credit terms and payment flexibility across these channels was time-consuming and complicated. Halfords sought a solution that could:
Offer a reliable line of credit to business buyers without creating excessive risk.
Provide a simple, user-friendly experience—both online and in-store.
Integrate seamlessly with existing operational systems and processes.
Solution:
Halfords business checkout in action, powered and trackable via Kriya's Merchant Portal
1. Offline Wholesale Bulk Team (via Kriya’s Merchant Portal)
Streamlined Order Management: Halfords’ B2B sales teams now use Kriya’s Merchant Portal to issue trade-credit terms to business buyers.
Real-Time Approvals & Credit Checks: The portal automates credit decisions, allowing Halfords to confidently handle large orders through telephone or email.
Consolidated Reporting: Detailed transaction records and analytics provide a clear overview of offline wholesale activities.
2. Online eCommerce Business Checkout (via Kriya’s Hosted Payments)
Seamless Checkout Experience: Kriya’s Hosted Payments solution plugs directly into Halfords’ online store, enabling business buyers to select ‘PayLater’ during checkout.
Instant Credit Decisioning: Automated credit assessments allow fast approvals, ensuring minimal friction and reducing cart abandonment.
Frictionless Onboarding: New buyers can sign up for a PayLater account at checkout with straightforward steps, encouraging conversion and repeat business.
3. +350 Physical Halfords Stores (via Kriya’s Direct APIs)
Integrated In-Store Payments: By leveraging Kriya’s Direct APIs, Halfords extended trade-credit purchasing options to its brick-and-mortar tills.
Trade Card Payments: Business customers simply present their Kriya-linked ‘Trade Card’ at checkout, instantly processing their purchase on credit terms.
Unified Credit Limits: Whether customers shop online or in-store, the same credit line and terms apply, ensuring consistency across all channels.
Key Results to date:
Higher B2B Sales & Conversion: Offering flexible payment terms through Kriya has led to an increase in B2B purchase frequency and order size—both online and offline.
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Business buyers benefit from a faster, more convenient buying journey, boosting loyalty and repeat purchases.
Operational Efficiency: Kriya’s single platform for multi-channel trade credit has streamlined credit checks, payment processing, and customer onboarding.
Enhanced Cash Flow & Reduced Risk: Real-time risk assessment and swift credit decisions help reduce Halfords’ exposure to bad debt, while Kriya handles the financing to ensure Halfords gets paid quickly.
Looking Ahead
Halfords is leveraging Trade Credit as a strategic tool to win larger, corporate customers. Over the next six months, Halfords and Kriya plan to extend the Trade Credit offering to include:
Cycle To Work Buyers: Enabling this segment of customers to benefit from flexible payment terms, thereby boosting sales in the cycling category.
Fleet Buyers: Providing tailored credit solutions to large fleet operators, making it easier for them to upgrade or expand their vehicle and equipment fleets.
This expansion not only enhances the value proposition for existing business buyers but also positions Halfords to capture new corporate clients by offering an integrated, omnichannel Trade Credit experience. As Halfords continues to evolve its product range and expand its commercial footprint, Kriya remains a critical partner—ensuring a streamlined, reliable, and scalable credit solution across all channels.
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur."
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Halfords Multichannel Trade Credit
“We expect our B2B revenues to double as a result of providing Kriya’s flexible payment terms to our trade and business buyers.” Stuart Zissman, Head of Financial Services
Halfords is the UK’s leading provider of motoring and cycling services and products. Its customers shop across over 1,750 fixed and mobile locations including, Halfords stores and garages, as well as its website, halfords.com.
Today, around a quarter of Halfords turnover is business-to-business. They sell to organisations of all sizes including SME businesses, garages, and workshops, offering discounts on automotive parts and tools with their Trade Card, as well as directly to larger commercial and government customers that buy in bulk.
However, like many well-established enterprises, Halfords found its future growth was challenged by the legacy processes of its past. Find out how they’ve teamed up with Kriya to remove the friction from their B2B commerce.
Halford's challenges
“The exam question” says Halfords’ Head of Financial Services, Stuart Zissman, “was how do we make selling to business and trade buyers less labour-intensive?” Having already overseen a successful consumer finance proposition at Halfords, it was clear to Zissman that their B2B offering had potential to grow by introducing a simple and effective credit solution.
1. B2B buyers expect payments terms
“All successful B2B propositions have some sort of financial support” Zissman explains. Whether large or small, Halfords’ business buyers want to be invoiced on payment terms. This is especially beneficial for garages and workshops, which thrive on efficient working capital cycles, allowing them to source parts upfront and defer payment until they have received compensation for their services.
Halfords recognised the opportunity to enhance their offerings by providing scalable trade credit, which was previously untapped. As Zissman says, "offering payments completes the circle."
2. Manual, unscalable processes were holding back growth
Halfords' hands-on approach to B2B processes presented an opportunity for greater scalability and growth. Wholesale orders, managed via account managers, involved manual quotes and purchase orders, which added complexity.
“We’d like to say yes to every single customer that wants to order from us,” says Head of Trade Card, Chris Millan. However, processing these detailed orders for existing buyers took time, limiting the retailer's ability to proactively attract new business and expand their account base.
What Halfords sought was a way to make their B2B offering more accessible and achieve a better economy of scale.
“We work with sole traders, business customers and government entities. Kriya is the only supplier that could support all three.” Chris Millan, Head of Trade Card
The search for a solution
Recognising the need for change, Halfords set out to find a way to modernise its B2B offering. With Kriya's 12-year track record and willingness to collaborate on a solution for their unique requirements struck a chord with Halfords.
A solution for all B2B buyers
Halfords has a diverse buyer base and needed B2B payment terms that could be offered to limited companies, government entities and sole traders.
Multichannel
With trade customers already purchasing online and in-store, Halfords needed a solution to offer payment terms holistically across their sales channels.
Risk expertise
With their focus on Motoring and Cycling, Halfords sought a partner with strong expertise in finance and payments, including robust credit and fraud detection capabilities, to help onboard their buyers.
“We are experts in motoring and cycling, and to ensure exceptional service for our customers, we decided to partner with Kriya, specialists in B2B payments and lending decisions.” Stuart Zissman, Head of Financial Services
The B2B vision
Halfords partnered with Kriya to transform their B2B offering. By integrating Kriya PayLater with their Trade Card, the retailer is combining trade discounts for B2B buyers with the ability to pay on account for online and in-store orders.
Adopting an eCommerce-first model has a number of advantages. Firstly, providing online buyers with highly-demanded payment terms expands the businesses they can sell to. Secondly, much of their offline business can be shifted to a self-serve, online checkout. Not only does this provide a smoother buyer experience, it also frees up the Halfords team to focus on the customers where their expertise has the most impact.
The near-infinite scalability of the Kriya solution means Halfords can not only improve their overall B2B customer proposition and experience, but they can also see financial benefits through the partnership too.
“Offering trade credit through payments makes it much slicker. It’s something buyers are familiar with from the consumer world.”Chris Millan, Head of Trade Card
Wholesale change
Halfords have kicked off their payments transformation with their wholesale offering.
Business buyers come to the Halfords wholesale team to place bulk orders and request custom details, such as branded bikes and accessories. Before Kriya, this fully offline sales channel required multiple teams and processes to transact each order. This process led to delays and hampered conversion, such as inventory becoming unavailable during the order, or customers purchasing elsewhere.
By streamlining the entire wholesale workflow into Kriya Merchant Portal, Halfords now have a single, automated flow for processing orders.
Wholesale buyers are first onboarded into Merchant Portal. This screens for credit and fraud risk, directly providing their sales team an instant spending limit decision for the buyer. Orders can then be placed on payment terms and invoices are automatically generated for the buyer. Additionally, Kriya assists with credit control by managing payment collections too.
“We needed a way forward that was less hands-on because the whole process was very, very manual.” Chris Millan, Head of Trade Card
How it works
1
The buyer places a wholesale order with Halfords
2
Halfords onboard the buyer into Kriya’s Merchant Portal
3
Payment terms selected and purchase complete. The buyer pays at the end of the following month.
Partnering for growth
Reflecting on the journey so far with Kriya, Zissman says “It’s that personal touch and relationship that makes the difference to the product we’re building together.” For Zissman, it's not simply outsourcing the expertise to a third party. “It’s more like we’re onboarding Kriya into Halfords and by extension they’ve become part of our team”.
There’s a busy roadmap ahead for Halfords and Kriya, with plans to bring the whole multichannel offering to market by the autumn of 2024.
We're very excited about this development,” says Millan. “Introducing payment terms to our Trade offering eliminates barriers that previously slowed us down and unlocks opportunities with a vast number of businesses we haven't historically engaged with.”
Flexible finance solutions to boost your growth
To learn more about our payments and digital trade credit solutions book a call with us today.
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur."
Duis aute
Voluptate velit
|
Halfords Multichannel Trade Credit
Challenge
Prior to Kriya, providing consistent trade-credit terms and payment flexibility across these channels was time-consuming and complicated.
Solution
Halfords can now offer a frictionless, flexible, and unified purchasing experience to its business customers.
Halfords—a leading UK retailer of automotive, cycling, and leisure products—needed a flexible payment solution that would empower their business customers to buy now and pay later across multiple channels.
Partnering with Kriya to offer Trade Credit, Halfords seamlessly extended trade credit to business buyers through:
By consolidating offline, online, and in-store transactions under a single credit-management platform, Halfords can now offer a frictionless, flexible, and unified purchasing experience to its business customers.
On-Premise Retail transactions in 350+ store locations
Prior to Kriya, providing consistent trade-credit terms and payment flexibility across these channels was time-consuming and complicated. Halfords sought a solution that could:
Offer a reliable line of credit to business buyers without creating excessive risk.
Provide a simple, user-friendly experience—both online and in-store.
Integrate seamlessly with existing operational systems and processes.
Solution:
Halfords business checkout in action, powered and trackable via Kriya's Merchant Portal
1. Offline Wholesale Bulk Team (via Kriya’s Merchant Portal)
Streamlined Order Management: Halfords’ B2B sales teams now use Kriya’s Merchant Portal to issue trade-credit terms to business buyers.
Real-Time Approvals & Credit Checks: The portal automates credit decisions, allowing Halfords to confidently handle large orders through telephone or email.
Consolidated Reporting: Detailed transaction records and analytics provide a clear overview of offline wholesale activities.
2. Online eCommerce Business Checkout (via Kriya’s Hosted Payments)
Seamless Checkout Experience: Kriya’s Hosted Payments solution plugs directly into Halfords’ online store, enabling business buyers to select ‘PayLater’ during checkout.
Instant Credit Decisioning: Automated credit assessments allow fast approvals, ensuring minimal friction and reducing cart abandonment.
Frictionless Onboarding: New buyers can sign up for a PayLater account at checkout with straightforward steps, encouraging conversion and repeat business.
3. +350 Physical Halfords Stores (via Kriya’s Direct APIs)
Integrated In-Store Payments: By leveraging Kriya’s Direct APIs, Halfords extended trade-credit purchasing options to its brick-and-mortar tills.
Trade Card Payments: Business customers simply present their Kriya-linked ‘Trade Card’ at checkout, instantly processing their purchase on credit terms.
Unified Credit Limits: Whether customers shop online or in-store, the same credit line and terms apply, ensuring consistency across all channels.
Key Results to date:
Higher B2B Sales & Conversion: Offering flexible payment terms through Kriya has led to an increase in B2B purchase frequency and order size—both online and offline.
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Business buyers benefit from a faster, more convenient buying journey, boosting loyalty and repeat purchases.
Operational Efficiency: Kriya’s single platform for multi-channel trade credit has streamlined credit checks, payment processing, and customer onboarding.
Enhanced Cash Flow & Reduced Risk: Real-time risk assessment and swift credit decisions help reduce Halfords’ exposure to bad debt, while Kriya handles the financing to ensure Halfords gets paid quickly.
Looking Ahead
Halfords is leveraging Trade Credit as a strategic tool to win larger, corporate customers. Over the next six months, Halfords and Kriya plan to extend the Trade Credit offering to include:
Cycle To Work Buyers: Enabling this segment of customers to benefit from flexible payment terms, thereby boosting sales in the cycling category.
Fleet Buyers: Providing tailored credit solutions to large fleet operators, making it easier for them to upgrade or expand their vehicle and equipment fleets.
This expansion not only enhances the value proposition for existing business buyers but also positions Halfords to capture new corporate clients by offering an integrated, omnichannel Trade Credit experience. As Halfords continues to evolve its product range and expand its commercial footprint, Kriya remains a critical partner—ensuring a streamlined, reliable, and scalable credit solution across all channels.
