Materials Market brings B2B buy now, pay later to the construction industry

Materials Market used Kriya Payments to offer embedded credit to their customers. We sat down with the two Co-Founders, Samuel Hunt and Andrew Haehn, to learn more about their story. They explain what problem they’re solving and how Kriya is helping in that mission. 

The Materials Market story

Materials Market is UK's only true marketplace for building materials. They connect buyers and suppliers of building materials in a really competitive space. They compare their service to Uber, where you don’t know who your driver will be when requesting a ride. 

When purchasing from Materials Market, your order goes out to hundreds of different suppliers. Materials Market then secures the best price and fastest delivery time by connecting you with whoever is most suited for supplying those building materials for you.

What’s the problem Materials Market solves in the building industry? 

According to Samuel, construction is known as the “lastminute.com” industry. And it is still predominantly offline, in what has been a traditional sector. Today, it is going through a digital evolution, with a lot of its processes moving online. It’s a clear opportunity for all players in the industry, but there are still a lot of kinks to straighten out. 

“In the contracting world, there are essentially three criteria for purchasing. Price, lead time, and supply. And making sure that you get all three is really difficult. You can always find a good price, but not the delivery time or it's out of stock. We thought – it shouldn’t be this difficult, right?” - Andrew Haehn, COO and Co-Founder.

This complexity means a lot of time on the phone trying to get quotes from different suppliers while the deadline creeps up. Materials Market automates the process, slashing delivery times and prices, and enabling contractors to deliver on their timelines.

Why offering credit at checkout is important

After pivoting to their current business model in January 2021, the start-up has seen rapid growth. But the founders knew how transformative offering credit online could be to their B2B marketplace.

“Trade customers in construction expect credit. They don't expect it online. That's something new for them. But they do expect their traditional suppliers, the bricks and mortar suppliers, to offer them credit. And so being able to offer them credit digitally is a game-changer for them.” - Andrew Haehn, COO and Co-Founder

“The great thing about trade credit is that because the retention rate is so high, every month  you are gathering more and more customers and the growth becomes exponential.” - Samuel Hunt, CEO and Co-Founder

Why did Materials Market choose Kriya?

The landscape of B2B credit providers is highly competitive, with lots of options from B2B buy now pay later to invoice financing. Quite simply, B2B businesses have a lot of choice to offer credit to their customers. So why did Materials Market choose Kriya for their B2B embedded finance partner? 

It embedded easily within the existing platform

Samuel shared that they “identified Kriya as the solution that would embed with our existing platform. That means that the customer can engage with one platform the whole way through, rather than having to deal with the materialsmarket.com website, but then, deal with an outside credit provider and possibly some other software.” This builds trust and doesn’t create unnecessary barriers for the end-user. It boiled down to Kriya’s easy and fast integration through a single platform.

High credit limits

Andrew shared that they initially integrated with another B2B buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution, but really struggled to grow with them – “We didn’t have the credit limits for our customers that we needed.”

“A lot of other providers are quite conservative to the point of offering limits that are very restrictive. If a customer is regularly spending £100,000 and you're offering them a £10,000 credit limit, they’re not even going to bother trading with you” adds Samuel. 

Instant decisioning 

Another major factor in Kriya’s factor was instant decisioning. Customers can receive a credit limit within seconds rather than going through a lengthy process of filling out a form, sending it off for a credit safe report and waiting for the credit control department to make a decision. 

“This is all based on algorithms and empirical data, so we’re able to get proper limits based on factual evidence. But we can get them very, very quickly and feed them back to our customers. Because of that, we can even do a lot of prospecting. We can do a soft check on a customer for a credit limit before approaching them with the limit essentially ready. And that obviously helps us convert those customers a lot more effectively.” - Samuel Hunt, CEO and Co-Founder

What results did Materials Market see after integrating with Kriya?

Compared to their previous credit provider, Materials Market has seen credit sales increase by an astounding 1,155%. They also find that customers are more than twice as likely to place a second order if they have a credit account. 

Average credit order value is 3.6 times higher than average cash order value, with average credit order reaching £3,057. Monthly cohort growth for credit customers is nearly quadruple that of cash customers. 

Over the last five months, credit orders account for 12.5% of overall sales. This peaked at 21% and is expected to grow to 50-56% within the next six months. 

“We've had significant growth since we've started offering credit at checkout with Kriya. We are now doing over £100,000 a month with Kriya just because we're offering that service for them. And I can see that that growth is just going to continue to skyrocket.” - Andrew Haehn, COO and Co-Founder

Kriya’s personal customer service

We are proud of our market-leading reputation for customer service, and this shines through for Materials Market as well.

“We found that Kriya listened to our needs. They didn't always have a solution out of the box for us, but they would say, look, what do you need? How can we work with you? And that was really great for us, because you don't always get that when you work really closely with another company. The team's always been really lovely, productive, and they always get back to us really quickly.” - Andrew Haehn, COO and Co-Founder

“It was clear that Kriya had the expertise and knew what they were doing. But at the same time they were really flexible and listened to our requirements. You know, every single B2B marketplace is different. Their customer base is different. The historical ways in which those companies have done business is going to be different. So if you don't have any flexibility and you just believe that your product is one size fits all, then you're not going to be successful and you're not going to maximise customer spend.” - Samuel Hunt, CEO and Co-Founder

What’s next for Materials Market?

They’re raising! Materials Market is looking to raise their Series A investment in 2023 which will give them the ability to grow further. With marketplaces it’s about achieving scale, so they’re focusing on onboarding suppliers and continuing to grow their customer base. 

At the tail end of 2022 they launched a next day delivery service for most regions of the UK on popular products they sell. And first and foremost, they’re focused on solving the root problem.

“At the end of the day, I'm still building that solution for the buyer that I was when I was 20 years old and really fed up and having to work ridiculously long hours just to get a piece of plasterboard to site on time. So we're still ultra focused on solving that problem” explained Samuel.

Interested in providing flexible payment options to your customers?

Are you a B2B eCommerce business looking to offer embedded finance to your customers? Get in touch and find out how our team can help!