suppose I want to open a retailer or mail order type business and buy inventory in bulk at a bargain price. Absent long history of being in business and the easy lending policies of yore, qualifying for a line of credit without collateral would probably be unlikely. Well, so is there a straightforward way to get a loan secured by the inventory itself?
Incidentally, suppose the answer is “no” because the lender is too afraid of the borrower stealing the inventory and running away. In this case, for the case of mail order businesses, why couldn’t the lender provide a secured storage facility where the mail order businesses could keep their borrowed inventory (guarded by lender’s personnel) and generally transact their business (whether just the shipping or maybe even reprocessing and other value-added work) on rented premises? That way the lender would have trusted the borrowers more. Do this sort of business arrangements exist out there?