Case Study | How Marco's Global Furniture Brand Scaled Efficiently with PhotonPay
Product Update | 2025-04-18 10:04:47
The global furniture market has demonstrated consistent growth, even in the face of volatility. In fact, China’s furniture exports surged to RMB 432.6 billion between January and November 2024, a 7.5% increase compared to the previous year.
Marco, founder and CEO of a fast-growing cross-border furniture company, exemplifies this success. Evolving from an Amazon top seller to a global DTC furniture brand, Marco’s company expanded steadily by focusing on quality craftsmanship, sustainable sourcing, and a digital-first approach to reaching consumers worldwide.
As the business expanded into new markets across Europe, North America, and Asia, Marco faced increasing complexity in managing supplier payments, influencer collaborations, and international operations. Simplifying their global payment flows became essential to maintaining momentum, and PhotonPay provided the tools and solutions they needed for efficient, cost-effective transactions.
Challenge 1: complex payments across multiple currencies
Managing a global supplier network in the furniture industry comes with unique payment challenges. As Marco's business expanded, working with global suppliers, logistics partners, and certification agencies became a daily reality. Marco’s company had to pay for raw materials, manufacturing, certifications, and overseas warehouse logistics—all across multiple countries and currencies.
However, traditional international wire transfers were slow, costly, and required significant manual effort to manage multi-currency transactions. These delays were particularly problematic when Marco’s team needed to meet strict European certification deadlines, such as CE, REACH, and FSC. Missing payment deadlines could delay market entry and disrupt production schedules.
Solution:
With PhotonPay’s Global Account, Marco’s team could collect payments globally and immediately allocate the funds for supplier payouts, without the need for additional transfer steps. This streamlined the cash flow process and improved overall financial efficiency.
They were able to pay global suppliers and partners securely and in real-time, covering over 60 currencies and 180+ countries and regions. For suppliers and collaborators who preferred PayPal, the Pay to PayPal feature allowed Marco’s team to transfer funds directly into business and personal PayPal wallets across 67 countries, supporting major currencies like USD, EUR, and HKD.
To optimize further, Marco’s team could monitor live FX rates around the clock and lock in favorable rates when making international payments. This flexibility reduced unnecessary conversion costs, minimized manual intervention, and enabled faster settlements — helping the business maintain supply chain stability and accelerate time-to-market.
Challenge 2: supporting global influencer and advertising payments
As Marco’s brand expanded globally, marketing efforts also scaled up. His team began running frequent ad campaigns and collaborating with influencers across platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. However, paying influencers and marketing agencies had their own payment preferences. Many preferred to receive payments via PayPal for speed and reliability, and some required fast payouts within tight timeframes, like 24 hours after contract signing.
Traditional systems lacked the speed and batch processing capabilities needed. Missed payment deadlines could damage partnerships and delay campaign launches, especially during high-traffic seasons like Black Friday and Christmas, and become a growing operational burden for Marco's team.
Solution:
By automating the payout process, Marco’s team saved time, improved accuracy, and maintained stronger relationships with their marketing partners worldwide. PhotonPay provided a streamlined payout solution. Marco’s team could now send promotional fees, creator payouts, and MCN commissions directly to their PayPal wallets — all from a single dashboard. Facing hundreds of small payments, Marco’s team could also seamlessly send payments to influencers and agencies with PhotonPay mass payouts securely and instantly.
Challenge 3: managing cash flow and complex reconciliation
The high unit value and long delivery cycles typical of the furniture industry created cash flow gaps between inventory procurement and final sales. Marco’s finance team had to handle hundreds of ad spends, supplier payments, and partner fees across multiple platforms every month. Without a centralized system, generating timely financial reports, analyzing campaign ROI, and planning future budgets became time-consuming and error-prone.
Solution:
In PhotonPay, Marco found the solution they needed to execute all their financial tasks within one platform. By moving their financial operations to PhotonPay’s unified platform, Marco’s team was able to centralize collection, payouts, FX management, and reconciliation—all in one place.
PhotonPay’s dashboard provided real-time visibility into supplier payments, advertising expenses, and transaction histories. With detailed reporting features, Marco’s finance team could monitor campaign spend against budgets in real time, without toggling between multiple systems. This consolidation saved Marco’s team countless hours, improved accuracy, reduced human error, and enabled faster decision-making based on real-time financial data.
Building a Secure Foundation for Global Growth
As Marco’s business shifted from natural expansion to more structured global operations, the need for secure and compliant payment solutions became critical.
Marco emphasized, “We aim to build a long-lasting brand, so compliance and financial security are non-negotiable. PhotonPay has been a trusted partner in safeguarding our transactions and protecting our global operations.”
PhotonPay places compliance and security at the core of its platform. With multiple global licenses and partnerships with top-tier financial institutions, PhotonPay ensures that every cross-border transaction meets the highest regulatory and security standards.
By combining strong risk management frameworks with real-time transaction monitoring and encrypted systems, PhotonPay helps businesses like Marco’s scale internationally with confidence and peace of mind.
· · · · · ·
"For us, achieving scale means having the right partners and systems in place to ensure timely transactions globally. We needed a solution that could keep everything running smoothly, without worrying about delays or missed deadlines. With PhotonPay, we’ve been able to handle complex payments efficiently, so we can focus on serving our customers and expanding our brand into new regions."
— Marco, Founder and CEO
Discover how PhotonPay’s global payment solutions can help your business expand faster and operate more efficiently. Talk to us to find the right global payment solution tailored to your needs.
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To launch Mastercard Commercial Credit Card to help businesses better navigate market volatility
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PhotonPay Partners with Coshine for Issuer Processing
PhotonPay, an innovative digital financial infrastructure service provider, has announced a strategic partnership with Coshine to optimize the capability of Photon Card through its issuer processing services.
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