How HipVan Scaled Rapidly As SEA’s Top Furniture Retailer, Powered By Aspire's Finance Stack

The Company: E-commerce Furniture Platform With An Edge 

Founded in 2013, HipVan is a cutting-edge e-commerce furniture platform that provides consumers in Singapore and beyond with curated products that range from sofas & dining sets to lifestyle offerings. They work directly with suppliers and designers to provide well-designed products at competitive prices with up to 70% off retail prices.

The Challenges: Big Goals Hampered By Growing Pains 

#1 Unable to make quick purchasing decisions

When purchasing furnishing products from suppliers, the procurement team used to make payments using bank transfers. The process was long and time consuming:

1. Generate a purchase order
2. Get approvals from management
3. Release payments

The whole process took anywhere between 7-14 days to complete. Consequently, the HipVan supply team missed out on flash deals offered by suppliers. Quick payments also assure suppliers, and help build trust over a period of time. In the pre-existing framework, this trust building took a back seat.

#2 Lack of real-time visibility and manual processes

Without issuing corporate cards to their team, employees were relegated to using their personal funds or raise POs to pay for business spends, leading to:

• Time-consuming paperwork
• Manual processes 
• Payment delays

Consequently, there was a lack of real-time spend visibility to inform HipVan’s management on the best way forward for the business. Without those insights, the team was unable to forecast spends accurately.

#3 Lack of cost savings opportunities

As an e-commerce business, HipVan made regular payments to overseas suppliers. HipVan only used bank or debit transfers to facilitate these e-commerce payments. While it got the job done, this mode of payment did not reward them for their purchases - not in the way a powerful corporate card would.

The Solution: E-commerce Friendly Aspire Cards with In-built Cashback Perks and Spend Limits 

As the pressure mounted on HipVan to stay on top of their sales pipeline, the team turned to Aspire Cards to maximise their inventory spending power and make smarter decisions based on the platform’s actionable budget insights.

#1 Fast & easy supplier payments with Aspire Cards

Much to HipVan’s relief, the team’s long lead times for supplier payments were fixed with Aspire cards. After applying for the Aspire Card, the team was able to set it up in minutes and start using it for inventory purchases. This liberated their supply team to strike time-critical deals, and build more trust with their customers.

Easy payments were just a first order effect. Second order effects included the power to buy in bulk as well as stay ahead of logistics and freight disruptions.