Starting a Retail Business with Bad Credit: Top Tips and Strategies

Even though starting up a small business is no easy task, the odds are in your favor. In fact, only 30% of these establishments don't succeed in the first two years. This is great news, and we hope it gives you the confidence to do well with your startup!

If you have bad credit, though, this statistic may not be as calming as it could be. After all, how are you supposed to start a whole business with supply, growth, and a profit margin when you're already in debt? 

The good news is that if you know what you're doing, there are ways that your business can flourish even if your credit score isn't up to snuff. Here, we're going to give you some pointers for starting a retail business with low credit... and help you make bank doing it.

Begin Online

One of the single best things you can do when starting up any business is to set up an online platform. Pretty much everyone has smartphones and WiFi nowadays, and that's where people see most of the ads they look at every day.

Using social media like Twitter and Facebook can help you reach the right audience and grow your business. It's totally free to set up pages on these websites, and for a small price, you can target certain age groups, genders, or socioeconomic classes. Social media is a great way to get to the audience that's most likely to buy your goods or services!

You should also do yourself a favor and set up an official website to promote your business. This page can have information about your business and a place that lets people know how to contact you. Plus, it's super easy to set up and looks professional.

Using SEO blogging services is also a great online marketing strategy. Search engine optimization helps make sure that your business appears in search engines when keywords are typed in. These words will connect your business to people who specifically actively searched for your goods and services.

The bottom line is that the possibilities are limitless.

Consolidate Debt

Everything involved in online marketing is pretty inexpensive. But of course, there are going to cost much higher than a few dollars here and there when you're trying to get a business off the ground.

When you're in deep debt, looking at the numbers can be disheartening, to say the least. This is especially the case when you owe different amounts of money to a lot of different lenders. Fortunately, there's a pretty great way to make these numbers go way down debt consolidation.

Consolidating debt is basically the practice of taking out one big loan from one lender to get the money to pay off many smaller loans from multiple lenders.

This might sound counterproductive, but in reality, it really lessens your load. You won't have to juggle a ton of numbers, which means you aren't going to lose money accidentally while trying to figure out the numbers. You also are going to save a lot of money since you won't be paying back interest to a ton of different people.

Check out Avant Credit to learn more about debt consolidation.

Get a Business Loan

After your debts are consolidated, you're still going to have to pay them off. What better way to do that than to take out a small business loan? Presumably, you know exactly where you want your business to go. Having good direction and a plan of action will make this step pretty easy.

Don't worry about the fact that you already have debt. Apply for a small business loan as soon as your debts are consolidated. This will actually help you to pay them off. 

There are possible two strategies here. One is to pay all your debts off immediately. Since you can't start up your business very well until your debt is paid, use a chunk of your loan to get yourself out of the red. Then you can use the remainder to start your business.

This might be a tempting direction to go, but it's problematic because you might not have enough funds for startup. It's a better idea to put the money from your small business loan towards the purchase of initial goods for sale, advertising, and marketing, or employee salaries.

The better strategy is to use this small business loan for exactly the purpose it's meant for. Put these finances into the business and make it as good as possible. Once you begin to profit, you can pay off your single, consolidated loan at a steady and manageable rate.

Rebuild Your Business Credit

It's important for any budding business to build credit, but this is, even more, the case if you already have poor credit. Rebuilding business credit isn't easy, but it's doable, especially when your business is doing well.

Make sure to incorporate your business into your personal credit. This doesn't mean that you're going to use the same account. It just means that the business needs to have legal ties to your person.

Although you might view these two aspects of your life as entirely different, it's legally impossible to separate the business from the owner. Whether this helps you or hinders you entirely depends on your finances, but in either case it's necessary.

Even though you and your businesses are one and the same when it comes to credit, you aren't when it comes to communication. Set up a special business e-mail, credit card account, and phone number. This will help you build credit for your business by charging- and efficiently paying back- transactions under the name of your company.

Learn About Starting a Retail Business

Starting up a small business is no easy task, and with bad credit, it can feel almost impossible. Fortunately, if you build an online base, know your finances, and work to rebuild them, you're going to be ok.

Now that you have the best insider tips when it comes to starting a retail business no matter what your credit score may be, it's time to delve deeper. Click here to learn what experts say is the number one best way to grow your business.

Good luck!