Company Spotlight: Deko

Mike Dawson, CEO, Deko

“Deko is a retail finance ecosystem that connects partners, consumers and lenders, helping to increase sales by removing complexities from the buyer journey with a product that delivers any basket, anytime, anywhere.”

Tell me about Deko’s financial ecosystem and how it helps grow sales?

Deko is a multi-product, multi-lender retail finance ecosystem focused on expanding access to retail finance for lenders, merchants and customers. Knowing that single lenders will have varying levels of sector or risk appetite, Deko partners with multiple lenders to ensure a perfect match for customer, merchant and lender. This means that we can confidently say “yes” to more transactions, help customers access more of the things they love and help our retail partners grow their business.

Every retailer is unique and requires their own particular service. A one-size-fits all approach is not always appropriate and can be restrictive depending on the type and needs of the retailer. Retail finance can clearly improve revenue, but it needs to be flexible and adapt to the changing needs of both retailers and consumers. Deko is committed to delivering that flexibility and choice. We offer well known buy-now-pay-later payment services as well as the bigger ticket loan facilities all served up in a highly tuned conversion engine.  We also recently launched our new-era digital credit account, Newpay, which requires one application and can then be used repeatedly, a fantastic product for any retailer that has high repeat spend. 

How do your products benefit retailers? 

The benefits that retail finance provides the consumer is clear and well documented. In the UK, 23.7 million consumers already use or would consider using buy-now-pay-later during their daily lives. However, what often isn’t mentioned is just how beneficial these services are to retailers and how it can alleviate pressures facing them.

One of the biggest problems facing retailers today is basket abandonment. Currently, the global rate of basket abandonment stands at roughly 86%. This figure shows the importance of combating basket abandonment and providing customers with the means to make the purchase. Deko’s pre qualification tools and multi-lender approach ensures customers have confidence in their finance outcome, reducing the chances of them abandoning their baskets, and ensuring retailers achieve more sales.

At Deko, we have seen the demonstrable benefits that flexible payment solutions can provide to our retail partners. Many of these businesses benefited from up to a 30% increase in sales after integrating our platform into their checkout process. We believe that working with us enables our partners to increase their revenue and drive customer loyalty in order to capitalise on the potential post-pandemic rush.

What types of retailers does Deko support?  

Deko works with businesses and merchants of all sizes who operate across a wide range of sectors. In fact, since our inception, we have worked with thousands of retailers and have handled more than £3 billion worth of transactions, making us well positioned to help retailers maximise their business and customer base.

Our bespoke offering is also especially crucial for smaller merchants in specialised areas that need options for larger payments, such as traditional retail companies like jewellers, or home improvement stores, but also other businesses like veterinary or medical practices.

What do you see as challenges for retailers and suppliers to the industry in the coming year and what are you doing to meet those challenges?

The past 18 months have been one of the most uncertain and difficult for merchants and customers in the UK. How each of these communities perform in the near future is going to be crucial and this is something that we are incorporating into our business. We understand that retail finance will be a key facilitator of the recovery, so a greater range of acceptance as well as a seamless checkout experience will be even more important. We’re proud to say that customers tell us that they love our service and consistently rate us as excellent, so this continues to motivate us to keep developing our whole ecosystem to make it even better. 

What role does your approach play in attracting more customers and sales?

As consumer demands shift, a flexible approach is crucial for driving more sales. The key is partnering with technology providers who can establish the best match for a retailer and its unique needs. With Deko filtering lending options and ensuring the right lender fit for the customer, our unique multi-lender approach delivers higher confidence a retailer  will secure their purchase and that the customer can make the payment. This is what we at Deko identified to be the key driver behind merchants seeing more business. Higher acceptance rates are of use to all merchants but in particular to businesses with a wide product range, especially those with larger than average basket prices. 

Integrating this technology must also be seamless to guarantee the best checkout experience. That’s why at Deko we ensure the checkout process is smooth, our technology provides a conversion match without any disruption to the customer experience. It is this combination of choice and simplicity of integration that is the key to retailers attracting more sales as we move out of the pandemic and into the increasingly digitised future. And that’s why my colleagues and I at Deko remain focused on – providing our partners with a seamless, flexible, retail finance ecosystem which offers them more customers, increased customer loyalty and more sales.