How Offering Finance Increases Your Average Sale Value

You sell a $75,000 CNC machine. The buyer nods, asks for a quote, and says "I'll talk to my bank." Two weeks later, nothing. No call back, no purchase order, no update. You follow up. They're "still working on it." A month later, the deal is dead and you never find out why.

This is the most common way equipment suppliers lose sales. Not to a competitor. Not to a cheaper product. To the gap between quoting a price and the customer actually getting finance sorted.

The gap between price and payment

Commercial equipment is rarely bought outright. Lease and loan finance is a standard way to cover capital expenditure on plant, machinery and vehicles, and your customers already expect to use it. The question is whether they finance through you, or whether they walk out and try to arrange it themselves.

When the customer arranges their own finance, three things happen. First, they enter a process that takes two to four weeks with their bank. Second, during that time, they reconsider whether they need the equipment at all. Third, if the bank says no, they don't come back to you. They just stop returning calls. You never see the deal again.

The suppliers who close more don't necessarily sell harder. They remove the friction between "yes, I want it" and "yes, I can pay for it."

How finance changes the conversation

A $75,000 CNC router is a capital decision. It needs board approval, budget allocation, maybe a conversation with the accountant. It feels like a big commitment because it is one.

$350 a week is a production cost. It sits alongside fuel, materials, and wages. It's a line item the business is already used to paying. When you reframe the purchase in weekly terms, you move it from a capital decision to an operating decision. The psychology shifts completely.

This reframing does something else: it moves buyers up the range. When the difference between a $55,000 machine and a $72,000 machine is $80 a week, buyers choose the better model. They buy the one with the features they actually wanted, not the one that fit their cash position that month. This is where average sale value lifts. Not from selling more units, but from selling better ones.

Indicative figures based on a 5-year term. Actual repayments depend on the lender, term, and the customer's profile.

What embedded finance looks like in practice

Adding finance to your sales process doesn't mean becoming a finance company. It means giving your sales team the tools to present a weekly cost alongside the sale price, and having a finance partner who handles everything from there.

In practice, that looks like this.

Pricing stickers on the showroom floor

Every piece of equipment in your showroom or yard gets a pricing sticker showing the weekly finance cost. Emu Money provides a simple template: the weekly amount written in by hand, with a QR code that takes the buyer straight to a short application form. The customer scans, answers five questions, and gets a same-day response.

The reframing happens before your sales team even opens their mouth. The buyer walks in and sees "$350/week" next to "$75,000." The conversation starts differently.

Finance on your website

If you sell equipment online, Emu Money's Shopify plugin displays "Finance from $X/week" on every product page. It updates weekly with current rates, routes pre-approvals directly through your store, and costs nothing to set up or run.

The data from 30+ Australian stores running the plugin is clear: 15 to 25% higher conversion on financed products and a 20 to 30% increase in average order value. Those aren't projections. They're measured results from equipment suppliers, trailer manufacturers, and specialist retailers.

Sales team training

Your reps don't need to become finance experts. They need to know how to present a weekly cost alongside a sale price, when to mention finance in the sales conversation (early, not as a last resort), and how to hand the customer off to the finance partner smoothly. A good finance partner trains your team on exactly this.

Collateral that works

Co-branded flyers, posters, and email signatures make finance visible across every customer touchpoint. A poster on the workshop wall. A line in the email signature. A flyer handed over with every quote. "Finance available" shouldn't be buried on page four of your website. It should be part of how you present every piece of equipment.

The EOFY factor

The $20,000 instant asset write-off just became permanent in the 2026 Federal Budget, ending years of last-minute temporary extensions. But beyond the write-off threshold, the broader depreciation pool benefits mean business buyers are actively looking to purchase and install equipment before June 30.

Suppliers who can say "we can get you approved today and installed this week" will close deals that competitors lose to the end-of-financial-year deadline. Speed matters here. A bank takes weeks. A broker with a panel of 50+ lenders can turn around an approval in hours.

What to do next

If you're selling commercial equipment and not offering finance at point of sale, you're leaving revenue on the table. Not because your product isn't good enough, but because the gap between quoting and paying is where deals go to die.

The fix isn't complicated. Partner with a finance broker, put weekly pricing on your showroom floor and your website, and train your sales team to lead with the weekly number. The equipment sells itself. Finance just removes the barrier.

Interested in adding finance to your sales process? Talk to Emu Money's partnerships team about setting up a vendor finance program for your business. Become a partner