REXEL is a world leader in the distribution of electrical equipment to professionals (B2B), with sales of €19.2 billion in 2023, and over 1,900 sales outlets in Europe, North America, China and Australia.
Romy Tognon is Head of Treasury and Credit Management. She explains how Fintecture solutions enable her to boost e-commerce growth and contribute to the group's ambitious transformation objectives.
Challenges: digitize payments, contribute to e-commerce growth
At REXEL, e-commerce accounts for 32% of sales, with a target of 50% by 2027. REXEL's customer portfolio, although 100% B2B, is made up of various profiles, with specific payment habits:
- 26% of sales are made with customers from the residential sector (including craftsmen and small installers), who like to make their purchases at a time that suits them, mainly in branches, and who have direct access to their company's bank account.
- Most customers pay on credit , with a payment path outside the web. Some customers pay cash on the web or in branch, and almost exclusively by card.
The Finance Department was faced with a number of challenges:
- In B2B, card payments generate substantial bank charges (between 1.2% and 3%).
- Some sales are blocked by card payment limits. The average shopping basket at REXEL is around €400, but can go up to €10k. With an average success rate of 76%, card payment does not transform all sales, and 24% of them may be a source of customer dissatisfaction, notably because of blockages due to the ceiling.
- Other payment methods require manual action to release unsatisfied requests by adjusting credit limits in the customer credit monitoring management system, which weighs on the productivity of accounting teams and does not guarantee a high level of responsiveness from business teams to deliver available merchandise.
Solution: The Fintecture transfer, a seamless process, a higher success rate and unleashed opportunities
Romy Tognon is keeping a close eye on developments brought about by PSD2, which obliges banks to share customer data via APIs, as well as the arrival of the new European Payment Services Directive, PSD3. These regulatory changes are the foundation ofOpen Banking, and payment initiation, a subject also closely followed by various trade associations, such as AFDCC and AFTE.
Beyond the regulations, she notes that more and more customers in Europe are mentioning this solution and asking to pay by instant transfer.
The principle of payment initiation is to simply execute a transfer, whether instant or SEPA, by connecting to the banking APIs. Merchants can thus offer their customers payment by transfer, via a payment link or directly on their Ecommerce site, without having to transmit their bank details. All the payer has to do is authenticate himself in his banking interface and validate the payment. All transaction data is embedded: identity, IBAN, order amount and reference or invoice number. The customer no longer needs to fill them in manually.
The merchant receives immediate confirmation of payment and can deliver without delay. The transaction log automatically includes all references, automating reconciliation and avoiding errors.
After a call for tenders, Rexel chose Fintecture for its understanding of B2B issues and its ability to handle different use cases, in particular through 2 complementary money transfer solutions, enabling it to address all types of customer:
- The intelligent transferis designed for larger customers with complex purchasing processes. It generates a personalized IBAN for the buyer, reproducing the benefits of payment initiation (instantaneity, reconciliation) while being transmitted along the decision-making chain.
- The immediate transfer enables small business customers who have access to the company's bank account to pay in just 1 click. The payment success rate is improved, and business opportunities are freed up.
Convince internally, deploy rapidly
Detecting and selecting these new payment methods then enabled us to work with business teams to define priority use cases such as :
- Cash payment on the e-commerce site or at a construction site for an integrated shopping experience;
- The integration of a payment link in invoices and customer reminders to reduce late payments;
- Faster release of work-in-progress.
Workshops with the business, finance and IT departments enabled us to establish a roadmap and the expected ROI, in terms of both cost reduction and sales development.
Result: successful deployment in Belgium, before considering wider rollout
The Belgian subsidiary was chosen to test the solution. Indeed, payments were not yet digitalized there; the teams were convinced of the benefits in terms of improving online sales transformation, and saw an opportunity to rapidly evolve their E-Commerce strategy. What's more, its stand-alone e-commerce site, separate from the Group's platform, promised rapid integration.
Deployment in other European countries is already envisaged, with France and the Netherlands in their sights.
