£20,000 stocked Q4 inventory and scaled paid acquisition into Black Friday.

Illustrative Candle Co. is a DTC scented candle brand operating exclusively online, Shopify storefront, Stripe and PayPal as payment rails, third-party fulfilment from a Manchester 3PL. Founded by a single founder, three years in, profitable on a unit basis with monthly card takings averaging £38,000 across the year.

The seasonal shape was extreme. Q1 to Q3 ran at £25 to 35k/month; October jumped to £55k; November (Black Friday + early Christmas gifting) typically hit £110 to 140k; December settled around £85k. Roughly 60% of annual revenue landed in the final eleven weeks of the year.

That shape created a recurring early-September problem. To capture Q4, the brand needed to commit to wax, glassware, packaging and printing 6 to 8 weeks ahead of demand, roughly £15k of inventory. On top, the planned paid acquisition spend (Meta, TikTok, Pinterest) for the October-December push was budgeted at £8k/month, a step-up from the £3k/month run-rate, which required upfront credit limits the founder didn't have on the existing ad accounts.

What the founder needed:

• £20,000 to cover Q4 inventory commitment (£12k) plus cash buffer for the first six weeks of scaled ad spend (£8k).
• Funding live by mid-September.
• A repayment shape that would clear quickly through Q4 takings rather than dragging into the Q1 quiet period.
• Payment-processor compatibility, split funding via Stripe.

E-commerce applicants get sharper pricing than hospitality on average, because card volume is continuous rather than burst-shaped within a day, and the chargeback ratio is usually measurable in basis points. The data here was strong: 24 months of Stripe history, refund ratio at 2.3%, chargeback ratio under 0.2%, predictable Q4 lift visible across two prior years.

We ran the application against four lenders, including two that specialised in DTC e-commerce. The winning quote came in at 1.23 factor, at the lower end of the typical UK range, with a deliberately low 10% daily repayment. The reasoning: the founder wanted maximum cash buffer through the peak ad-spend weeks rather than aggressive repayment, and at 10% the maths still cleared the advance in roughly 3.5 months given the volume forecast.

We also negotiated removal of a personal guarantee on the basis of two years of clean trading and a director profile with no adverse credit events, a small win but one that mattered to the founder.

• Advance: £20,000
• Fixed cost: 1.23
• Total repayable: £24,600
• Daily repayment %: 10% of card takings
• Average monthly card takings (annualised): £38,000
• Q4 actual monthly takings (Oct/Nov/Dec): £58k / £128k / £92k
• Estimated monthly repayment (annualised): £3,800
• Actual term: 3.5 months (cleared by end of December)
• Cost of capital: £4,600

Inventory landed at the 3PL in late September. Paid acquisition scaled cleanly through October with no credit-limit interruptions. Black Friday weekend itself produced £42,000 of card takings across four days, a roughly 35% lift on the prior year, attributable to the larger inventory pool (the brand sold through prior years' bestsellers within hours of go-live and left revenue on the table) and the higher early-funnel ad spend that had been running through October to warm up audiences.

The advance cleared by 28 December. The founder closed the year with the strongest Q4 in the brand's history and meaningful retained cash entering Q1, a position the previous year had taken until February to reach. They renewed in March on a £30,000 facility against an SS24 collection launch.

For wider sector context, see MCA for e-commerce.

“This scenario shows MCA at its best: a known seasonal peak, a use of funds that directly enables the takings that repay it, and a repayment shape that clears inside the same trading window the capital was deployed for. The 1.23 factor sits at the low end of UK pricing because the underlying data was strong, that's what e-commerce operators with two years of clean Stripe history should expect to negotiate to.”