Background: Strength, innovation, and the "best bang for your buck"

Founded in 2010, Bells of Steel was built on a simple but powerful mission: to provide industry-leading, innovative fitness equipment that delivers the absolute best value for their customers' hard-earned money.

What started as a lean operation has grown into a cross-border powerhouse. Today, Bells of Steel boasts tens of thousands of customers across North America, Australia and the UK. Their high-quality barbells, racks, and plates are regularly featured on major industry channels like Garage Gym Reviews and Gluck’s Gym and are trusted by trainers, commercial gyms, police stations, fire departments, and military bases across the United States and Canada.

To support this massive community, Bells of Steel operates flagship retail showrooms in Indianapolis, Toronto, and Calgary, backed by a dedicated, growing team. However, managing a physical and digital retail footprint across four large countries requires a highly complex global supply chain and an equally complex financial operation.

Challenge: The high cost of cross-border commerce

To maintain their "best bang for your buck" promise, Bells of Steel has to run an incredibly efficient supply chain. This means procuring parts, managing manufacturing, and running digital advertising campaigns globally.

Because they are an agile, digital-first operator, their team heavily favors the speed and convenience of credit cards over slow bank wires to drive their daily operations. Managing inventory and digital ads means coordinating with vendors and partners globally. In fact, their operational footprint spans transactions across 12 different countries and 8 different currencies.

Operating as a Canadian business with a massive US presence meant dealing with constant currency friction. Using traditional Canadian business credit cards, every single US and international transaction was hit with a hidden ~2.5% foreign exchange (FX) markup. For a business with significant recurring monthly USD expenses on advertising, software, and international logistics, these small fees quietly compounded into thousands of dollars in lost margin every year. The business was essentially paying a "growth tax" just for scaling globally.

Solution: A borderless card built for modern operators

To eliminate this friction, Bells of Steel partnered with Loop to streamline their international card spend.

By adopting Loop’s multi-currency corporate credit cards, Bells of Steel gained the ability to spend directly in USD, CAD, GBP and other major currencies without triggering forced, costly conversions. Instead of traditional banks pocketing a percentage of every transaction, Loop allowed Bells of Steel to pay their international vendors in their preferred currencies.

Because Loop's platform is built specifically for scaling e-commerce and retail brands, the transition was seamless. Bells of Steel was able to route their high-frequency operational transactions through a single, unified platform. Whether paying a local utility in Calgary or a software vendor in the US, the team had the capital and flexibility they needed without the administrative headache of managing separate banking relationships.

End Results: Reclaiming margin to fuel growth

The transition to Loop has delivered immediate, measurable value to Bells of Steel’s bottom line:

• $10,000 CAD in Annual Savings: With traditional bank FX markups on their monthly USD operational spend, we calculate that Bells of Steel would be incurring approximately $10,000 CAD in incremental fees without Loop products
• $1,000 in Card Fee Savings & Simplified Management: As an additional benefit, Loop’s platform has been highly effective for managing the employee credit cards. Physical cards are mailed directly to remote employees across Canada, while virtual cards take less than a minute to set up with customizable access options. This simplicity allowed Bells of Steel to save $1,000 in annual employee credit card fees charged by traditional banks, significantly reducing friction for employees and lightening the overall administrative workload.
• Frictionless High-Volume Spend: The brand successfully transitioned its high-frequency operational card spend over to Loop, routing seven-figure transactional volume through the platform seamlessly.
• True Multi-Currency Agility: The team easily managed transactions across multiple countries and currencies, all centralized in a single dashboard.

With an estimated $10,000 in calculated annual savings from just this one area of their operations, Bells of Steel can reinvest those funds directly back into product research and development, helping them design the next generation of innovative strength equipment.

More importantly, Loop has eliminated the operational friction that slows down cross-border businesses. With their multi-currency cash flow optimized, the team at Bells of Steel can stay laser-focused on what they do best: helping athletes, home-gym builders, and first responders build strength without breaking the bank.

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