Increased working capital achieved by leveraging HSBC's Virtual Card solution

Petlab Co. was co-founded in London by entrepreneurs Chris Masanto, Damian Grabarczyk and Matthew Davies in November 2018. Petlab set out to “provide the best for your best friends” and was largely inspired by Chris’ personal experience with family dog, Krystal. Petlab markets, distributes and sells pet supplements through its own online store, as well as major marketplaces such as Amazon and Chewy.

HSBC has been Petlab’s banking partner from day one, supporting Petlab grow from its first sale to being a leader in the pet supplement space today. Key to this partnership has been HSBC’s ability to support Petlab’s scaled marketing operation and worldwide banking services, allowing Petlab to expand into international markets.

Petlab reaches its customers through direct-to-consumer marketing. As a start-up with no raised capital, Petlab’s success was tied to its efficiency in marketing spend. When placing advertisements via online channels and marketplaces, Petlab was facing challenges with using traditional Corporate Cards. Monitoring the success of individual marketing campaigns was time consuming and the lack of automated reporting resulted in increased manual processing. Petlab required a solution which would increase visibility and control and provide automated reporting direct to their Treasury Management System (TMS).

HSBC’s Virtual Card proposition was ground breaking for Petlab Co. Through HSBC’s Virtual Card portal, Petlab have the flexibility to generate a Virtual Card for each of their advertising campaigns. Each campaign can now be closely monitored with ease of comparison between spend and sales generated.

Combined with the immediate access to spend data, Petlab was able to use Virtual Cards for real-time reconciliation of transactions, ensuring that all marketing analytics could be fully reconciled instantly. These features allowed Petlab to compete with the biggest corporations due to their “agility” in marketing.

As Petlab’s team switched to remote working during the pandemic, there was no interruption to operations thanks to their Virtual Card set up. Petlab has calculated that moving their advertisement spend to HSBC’s Virtual Card solution has given them an additional six weeks of working capital which is vital for the business. Petlab also benefits from rebates generated by spend on their Virtual Card programme.

• Automated reconciliation with integrated solution
• Reduction in manual processing
• Increased control and working capital
• Future proof, scalable business model