Coconut Bowls eliminates unnecessary conversion fees with Airwallex

The challenge

Before using Airwallex, Coconut Bowls were faced with two challenges:

Unnecessary currency conversions resulting in high fees eating into margins

Coconut Bowls were forced to convert foreign currency revenue to AUD within 72 hours when using their previous FX provider. However, they would then frequently convert that back into USD and other currencies to pay overseas suppliers and contractors.

Highly manual and inefficient processes to manage cash flow

Coconut Bowls were using a variety of finance platforms in their business, such as AMEX for international payments, an FX provider for collecting funds internationally, and bank-issued credit cards for managing their online subscriptions. This process was not only time-intensive to manage, it was impacting their bottom line.

The solution

Coconut Bowl boosted profit margins by 3% and simplified global finance processes with Airwallex. They can now collect, hold and pay with multiple major currencies like USD, GBP, EUR, and AUD. Eliminating unnecessary currency conversions while having better visibility of their global cash flow in a single place.

Jake McKeon

Founder

“Coconut Bowls very quickly attracted global attention and we began making sales in USD, GBP and Euro. Before Airwallex, we were making unnecessarily expensive conversions. Our margins have easily increased by 3% simply by switching to Airwallex.”

About Coconut Bowls

In late 2015, Australian digital nomad Jake McKeon was at a beach in Bali, watching a local man carve and polish souvenirs out of discarded coconut shells. Jake was inspired by the coconut shells, naturally shaped like a bowl, no plastic needed. Thus, Coconut Bowls was born. Coconut Bowls instantly attracted customers on a global scale, and started seeing international sales take-off. Very soon, the team needed a better way to manage their global cash flow that didn’t take a huge clip on each transaction.

Today, Coconut Bowls has sold hundreds of thousands of bowls to customers in over 150 countries. They have replaced single-use items in more than 600 cafes in Australia.

How Coconut Bowls transformed their Business With Airwallex

Improved their profit margins by 3%

Coconut Bowls can now collect and hold their USD, GBP, EUR and AUD revenues in one place with Global Accounts. They could then pay their suppliers and contractors directly with these currencies at no additional conversion fees. Eliminating unnecessary currency conversions that they were previously forced to make.

Global Accounts also gave their wholesale customers the option to pay in their local currency, without Coconut Bowls needing to set up a local business entity.

Saved 3% on their USD SaaS subscriptions like Shopify and Klaviyo

With their fast-growing business, fees on their Shopify and Klaviyo subscriptions were becoming sizable, alongside the 3% international card transaction fees they were paying on them. By simply paying with their Airwallex’s multi-currency virtual cards, the team realised immediate cost savings.

Streamlined processes with better visibility of their global cash flow

Coconut Bowls could now have full visibility of their global revenues and expenses in one place. The integration to Xero also meant the days of manual reconciliation between multiple accounts were over. Now, their transactions automatically sync every hour, saving hours of manual work each week.

Dedicated virtual cards for each major SaaS subscription also gave them better control of their SaaS spend. The team could easily cancel the subscription by cancelling the card, no login details to remember or phone calls to make.