Yop & Tom: Luxury journals and planners to inspire big thinkers

About Yop & Tom

Launched in August 2017, Yop & Tom produces high-end journals and planners that keep your thoughts and goals organised to help you stay on top of your busy schedule. Their mission is simple - to help people take great ideas out of their heads and into the world. The journals are a tool that helps materialise your creative ideas. By disconnecting from the digital world and reconnecting with pen and paper you can bring your ideas to life.

The challenge

Yop & Top has been a successful UK-based business for many years and has gained lots of loyal customers that place repeat orders. Strong traction combined with the desire to grow the business led to them expanding their reach by selling abroad in the US and Canada.

However, this brought along new challenges which included having to fund additional inventory across different warehouses globally. Demand for journals and planners reaches its peak near the end of the year as customers start afresh in the new year. For Yop & Tom, inventory must be ordered several months in advance from their trusted suppliers. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic created longer supply chain lead times for their inventory and they were in need of capital to purchase more.

The solution

Lenkie analysed Yop & Tom's sales data to build an in-depth understanding of their business in minutes. By aggregating data from different sources, our underwriting process took less than a day and we were able to provide funding to finance their inventory in a seamless experience. They had the advantage of making repayments as a percentage of their future revenue, giving them additional flexibility. Yop & Tom received their funds within 4 days of their application and were able to place a larger inventory order benefiting from cheaper pricing.

The result

The results were outstanding as Yop & Tom recorded its best month of sales in December 2021. Despite ordering additional inventory due to the huge demand for their product they still sold out of inventory over the retail peak. However, given their existing relationship with Lenkie, they are now in the process of agreeing to a further cash advance to further fuel their growth across the US and Canada.

“Lenkie has been a great way for our business to attract extra capital, so we can plan ahead, buy more inventory and grow faster.” 

- Joppe Coelingh Bennink, Co-Founder