Squeezed by tight credit and tempted by record high gold prices, small business owners are finding an alternative to the bank: the pawn shop.

CNNMoney reported that more than half of the customers at online pawn shop Pawngo are small business owners, according to Todd Hills, CEO of the Denver-based company.

“These guys can’t wait. They have businesses. They have employees they need to pay,” said Hills, who launched Pawngo in June.

Pawning is a relatively no-muss, no-fuss process, especially when compared with getting a bank loan. A customer takes an item of value — such as gold, jewelry or electronics — to a pawn shop and gets a loan based on the value of the object. As with a bank loan, the customer is charged interest. Once the loan is repaid, the pawnbroker returns the item to the customer. If the customer doesn’t repay the loan, the pawnbroker keeps the object, with the aim of selling it to recover the loan amount.

With pawning, there are no applications, credit checks or dings to the credit report if the customer defaults on the loan. “You can still bring your stack of papers into the bank; it doesn’t guarantee you will get a loan,” Hills said.

Though individual consumers might walk into a pawn shop with a couple hundred dollars’ worth of jewelry looking for cash to fill up the gas tank or the refrigerator, small business owners tend to come in with more expensive items, said Ray Shaffman, a salesman at Gables Pawn and Jewelry in Miami.

Gables Pawn and Jewelry has seen customers come in with watches made by Rolex, Cartier and Patek Philippe. It pays between $5,000 and $10,000 each for them, Shaffman said.