Buy Now, Pay Later products had a fantastic 2019 holiday season. Retailers using these payment solutions saw generous sales during shopping holidays like Cyber Monday and Black Friday, and many individual providers of these payment solutions also saw personal growth in their market share and company revenues.
The success of BNPL is increasing the pressure to stand out as an installment payments provider. Competition in this area continues to increase, especially as consumers continue to change the ways that they interact, and most importantly, pay retailers and the other corporations with whom they interact daily.
In the latest “Buy Now, Pay Later Tracker®,” PYMNTS analyzes how BNPL solutions are continuing to expand as well as how the most recent holiday season has affected that growth. The Tracker also examines how different technologies such as mobile could impact BNPL innovation and the future of retail.
Around the Buy Now, Pay Later World
The end of the holiday season marks the time of the year where consumers are starting to total up the extent of the damage of the festive spirit on their wallets, and many that rely on credit and similar products are seeing dramatic results. One study noted that the average consumer in the United Kingdom will take seven months to pay off all of the debts and interest accrued by the 2019 holidays.
That perhaps explains why there is a surge of interest in BNPL and installment products that could help to skirt these wider financial impacts for consumers, leading to more investment in companies that can provide such solutions. Australia in particular is seeing more development and funding for its BNPL companies, which include industry heavyweights such as Afterpay and Zip. Both saw their shares climb over 100 percent each, respectively, over the past few months as interest in BNPL grows sharper.
Another factor that may be driving BNPL interest is an increasing lack of interest in typical eCommerce, which has become old-hat especially to younger customers like millennials and Generation Z shoppers. Sales in eCommerce are continuing to rise in certain markets, but much more slowly than in previous years. BNPL could provide a way to boost sales growth back up as younger consumers start to spend more.
To learn more, visit the Tracker’s News & Trends.
How Verishop Is Using BNPL To Enhance The Millennial Shopping Experience
Changes in retail are greatly driven by millennials and Generation Z who now have more disposable income to spend. These consumers still remain wary of many traditional financial products such as credit cards, however, and that puts retailers in a bind when it comes to facilitating payments for items that millennials want but are unwilling to purchase through credit. BNPL could be a way to enable exactly the kind of trust between millennial shoppers and retailers that is currently missing, says Cate Khan, co-founder of online retailer and brand aggregator Verishop. To learn more about how retailers such as Verishop are using BNPL as a bridge for millennial consumer trust, visit the Tracker’s Feature Story.
The Increasing Importance Of Mobile BNPL Offerings
Mobile is becoming an increasingly important channel to retailers, and one that is exponentially harder to support as space and consumer attention in this area shrinks. The growing number of consumers who are shopping on mobile are sensitive to any friction in the checkout experience, and that includes any frustration with their payment options. Adding BNPL solutions into the mobile checkout experience could be one way that retailers can provide the increased convenience and flexibility these customers are already expecting. To learn more about the status of BNPL on mobile, visit the Tracker’s Deep Dive.
About the Tracker
The “Buy Now, Pay Later Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and Afterpay collaboration, brings you the latest news and research from the buy now, pay later and retail space. It features expert analysis regarding changing payment trends as well as insights from top insiders within the retail and fashion industries