Every retailer knows the golden quarter can make or break the year. But what’s less often said is this: the real battle for survival starts months earlier.
In Q3, merchants place the biggest orders of their calendar, tying up vast sums in stock long before a single customer clicks “buy.” It’s the point in the year when shelves are full, cash reserves are empty, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
“This is the paradox,” says Peter Beckman, CEO and co-founder of Treyd, a financing ‘buy now, pay later’ business specifically designed to help retailers grow faster. “40 to 50 per cent of annual sales can fall into Q4, but the spend happens in Q3. You’ve bought twice as much stock, you’re paying suppliers up front, you’re launching campaigns, but the revenue doesn’t land until much later. It’s a period that makes or breaks a retail business.”
A cycle that strangles growth
For SMEs, the problem is rarely demand. “The most common thing we hear is ‘we have the customers, we just can’t buy the stock’,” Beckman says. “Margins are there, sometimes 50 per cent plus. But when the best chance to sell comes along, they can’t fund the products that would deliver that growth. It’s painful.”
Traditional banking hasn’t provided answers. “Banks like security. Factories, machinery, property,” Beckman explains. “Most retailers don’t have those. And they don’t like seasonality. Looking at a year-end report doesn’t tell you anything about the stark difference between Q1 and Q4. So smaller brands, especially those paying suppliers cash in advance, have been left out in the cold.”
The outcome is brutal. Profitable SMEs saying no to their best customers, or running out of their most popular lines right when demand peaks.
Growth financing: a model made for retail
Treyd’s answer is what Beckman calls “growth financing”. A combination of payables and receivables support that directly addresses the seasonal squeeze.
“We pay your suppliers so you don’t have to drain cash months in advance,” he explains. “You pay back up to 150 days later, which means you can hold onto liquidity for marketing and operations. Then on the receivables side, if you’ve invoiced a wholesaler and you’re waiting months to get paid, we can advance that cash. Put the two together, and you’ve removed the single biggest barrier to scaling.”
For SMEs, it changes the psychology of peak trading. “Instead of asking ‘how much stock can I afford to buy?’ you can ask ‘how much stock can I actually sell?’ That’s a completely different mindset, and it drives growth.”
“Half the size without it”
The impact is best illustrated in the story of a UK toy brand that partnered with Treyd.
“When they first came to us, they were doing around a million in revenue,” Beckman recalls. “They’d invented this great product, everything they could buy, they could sell. But 80 per cent of their sales landed in Q4. It was a huge problem. They simply couldn’t fund the stock.”
By using Treyd to fund Q3 purchasing and then unlocking receivables once wholesale orders went out, they bridged the crunch.
“Now, a few years later, they’re at £50million to £60million in revenue. They would still have been a good company. But realistically, they’d be half the size without that financing. The only limiting factor was cash and removing that has been transformational.”
Why Q4 2025 is different
After two years of cost pressures and record insolvencies, Beckman sees this year’s golden quarter as a rare chance for SMEs to claw back lost ground.
“Consumer confidence has started to return. People are spending again. This Q4 is the first real opportunity in years to get back to growth,” he says. “But if you can’t buy the stock, you miss it. And then Q1, which is always tough, will feel even worse. After two painful years, that would be devastating.”
The message is urgent: this isn’t just another peak, it’s a turning point.
Levelling the playing field
What excites Beckman most is the democratising effect of growth financing. “Large retailers don’t face this problem. They tell suppliers they’ll pay after they’ve sold. SMEs don’t have that leverage. They’ve been forced to pay months in advance, and it’s been crippling.”
With data-driven, digital solutions, that imbalance is finally being addressed. “It used to be that you needed an analyst to sit for hours, digging through accounts to understand a business. That doesn’t work for SMEs. But today, by connecting accounting systems and banking data, we can see the seasonality, we can see the margins, and we can say: yes, this makes sense. Let’s back you.”
It’s why Beckman believes we’re at the start of what he calls a “brand revolution.” “It becomes as easy to grow a product-based business as it is to grow a software company. You’ve got the marketing tools, the logistics, the digital infrastructure. And now, finally, the financing to match.”
Not too late for this year
For retailers worried the window has closed, Beckman’s message is clear. There’s still time.
“You haven’t paid all your suppliers yet. You’ve still got marketing spend to come. Even into November, you can use growth financing to free up cash, boost your campaigns, and sell at full price before discount season. It only takes a few minutes to setup and approval rarely takes more than a few hours. The earlier you start, the better but it’s definitely not too late.”
The bottom line
For Beckman, the logic is simple. “If you can sell more stock, and you’ve got the margins, then financing is almost always a no-brainer. The return on investment can be 20:1 or more. That’s the kind of impact it has.”
The golden quarter has always been retail’s biggest opportunity – and its biggest pressure point. With growth financing, Beckman argues, SMEs no longer have to choose between survival and growth.
“Retail doesn’t lack customers,” he concludes. “It doesn’t lack great products. It lacks capital at the right moment. Fix that, and everything changes.”
For more information on how Treyd can help you free up cash and grow, visit treyd.io.
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