Hiveterminal: Announcing Changes to the Business Model and Looking Ahead to 2022
Along with the launch of our new website and branding for the DACH market, we are introducing important changes to both our business model and the foundations of the Hiveterminal platform.
The first change we are introducing is a significant one; the Hiveterminal platform will no longer be free for invoice sellers. The reason we decided to make this change is two-fold. Under the current business model, Hiveterminal has been carrying the cost of financial data acquisition for both the registered company and their partner companies. We did so in good faith as part of our initial growth efforts, hoping to increase our market share and user base. However, analyzing the costs through the lens of business conversion (that is, measuring the percentage of people who simply registered and didn’t sell any invoices versus those who did), made it hard for us to stick with this approach going forward.
Invoice sellers will now pay a small convenience fee. It will primarily cover the costs of financial data acquisition for their company and their debtors and make Hiveterminal more resilient to large inflows of business entities to the platform.
Secondly, this fee enables us to easily verify the invoice seller’s banking information, makes it harder to fool the system by attempting to sell invoices from a third party, and ultimately increases the barrier of security for invoice buyers.
The second change we are introducing directly benefits invoice buyers who would like to purchase invoices on the Hiveterminal platform. With the new business model, frequent buyers will have access to lower fee tiers, as long as their investments on the platform fall into a specific tier based on the rolling, 12-month investment history. We believe that this kind of system will incentivize frequent buyers to pick up more volume and increase their earnings as a result.
But, over the next few months, we will introduce additional changes that will improve the quality of Hiveterminal’s offering. This will mean that higher-risk invoices will no longer be offered to invoice buyers on Hiveterminal and the option to sell the invoice without the debtor’s validation and approval will be removed completely.
Additionally, Hiveterminal will now interact in the invoice sale process. This will mean that the invoice will be sold to Hiveterminal first and then resold at the same price to the invoice buyer. This will keep the contact information of the invoice buyer hidden from the invoice debtor and be a first step in exploring silent factoring options for enterprise clients going forward
Over the next few months, Hiveterminal will also increase the technology capabilities of the current platform by removing inefficiencies that were impacting the speed and the UX. We will slowly begin revamping the look of the platform to fit with the new branding and to make it truly mobile-friendly for investors who would like to buy invoices on the go.
Many of these changes will allow Hiveterminal to expand its service offering into additional verticals. One such possibility entails offering the Hiveterminal platform as a white-label solution for buying and selling invoices, either for the needs of an individual large company or in additional geographical markets across the ocean.
Stay tuned and have a happy holiday season!
