C2000 raises its credit limits

Broadline distributor Computer 2000 (C2000) is dishing out £11.5m of additional credit for its SME resellers to induce additional channel spending.

Broadline distributor Computer 2000 (C2000) has doubled the limits available to 1,000 of its SME resellers, from £5,000 to £10,000, and given 1,300 resellers that previously had no credit facility up to £5,000 credit.

Alistair Brett, sales director at C2000, told CRN: “We have experienced a 10 per cent increase in the number of resellers that have traded with us in July since this went live.”

C2000 will operate a Stepped Increase Programme, increasing resellers’ limits step by step.

“We’d normally have to go through a lengthy procedure before we could up the limit. We wanted to speed up this process and make it easy for resellers to do business with us.

If a customer is regularly spending with us and regularly paying us on time, it shows that they want to do business with us.

“Provided they keep spending with us and paying their bills on time we will increase their credit limit gradually, from £5,000 to £10,000, then to £18,000 and later £25,000,” said Brett.

“For those resellers that don’t have any credit with us but spend regularly, we decided to offer a £5,000 limit.”

However, Eddie Pacey, director of credit at rival distributor Bell Microproducts Europe, said: “While uplifting credit lines is a great idea, the danger is that you’re just creating excess credit. Firms need to find out if the credit they’ve already made available is being fully utilised, otherwise it is a pointless exercise,” he added.

Leanne Gravil, branch manager at VAR CBC Computer Systems, said: “We have received notification from C2000 about it and feel it is good news. When C2000 has a special promotion on we’ll often order 200 boxes and then spend all our credit in one go, so this should definitely benefit us.”