In recent years, when the dreaded cost-of-living-crisis has reached an all time high and the after effects of various lockdowns are still impacting daily life, the way we shop has completely transformed. The high street is dying out, towns and cities have more blank spaces than Taylor Swift and online shopping has taken over.
Now that virtually everyone has a shopping centre worth of stores right in their pockets, it’s easier than ever to just take your phone out and make a purchase. But with energy bills rising, and housing prices creeping, it’s not as simple as just paying for what you want.
Luckily, most businesses now offer the option to ‘buy now, pay later’, or BNPL. Klarna, Stripe and even PayPal give you the option to spread your monthly costs out, so the stress of affording that new fridge is made just a little bit lighter. In fact, making payments online using BNPL has tripled in the last 4 years!
So, how can you use BNPL to your advantage when running an online business?
Santa’s coming!
Christmas is fast approaching! Cards have been in shops since September, sweets and chocolate are already lining supermarket shelves and your tree is in its box just waiting to spread its branches. So how can you get your business holiday ready?
There’s a lot of competition when it comes to present buying, with stores battling it out to be the chosen one. Make sure potential customers choose you, by giving them the payment options they want.
BNPL is a popular service when it comes to shopping for Christmas presents, with its usage growing in recent years following the cost-of-living-crisis. So the option the spread costs is a game-changer for many. Add to that peace of mind by offering BNPL services on your online shop.
Many website building products, including our Ecommerce Website Builder and WordPress Hosting, offer the option to add plugins for Klarna, Stripe, PayPal and WorldPay, which all provide BNPL. But how do you choose which is best suited for you? Here’s a quick rundown of the most popular BNPL services.
Klarna
Probably one of the most well known options, Klarna offers BNPL options if your customers want to ‘Pay in 3’ interest-free instalments or pay in full up to 30 days after purchase. With their ‘Pay in 3’ option, the first payment is taken at point of purchase, and any after that are taken automatically every 30 days. The 30 day option offers a sort of ‘try before you buy’, so your customers don’t pay anything until they’re happy with the product.
They can also download the Klarna app to keep track of what they’re paying back, how much they still owe and get deals they may not have seen on a shop's website.
Klarna gives businesses a promotion on their app, so potential customers will be driven to your site by linking things they’re already interested in to you.
Stripe
Stripe uses services like Klarna to support their BNPL setup. As a business, you’ll get paid in full as soon as a customer makes a purchase, but the customer doesn’t pay anything outside of their BNPL agreement.
The customer chooses BNPL at checkout, creates an account with a BNPL provider (like Klarna), chooses a repayment plan and returns to your site to purchase the product. Depending on which provider they’ve gone with depends on what kind of repayment plan they have. For example, through Stripe, Klarna offers 3 or 4 instalments, pay in 30 days or monthly payments for up to 36 months. Or there’s Clearpay, which gives customers the choice of 4 instalments or monthly payments for up to 12 months (although this seems to only be available in the US).
So where Klarna on its own is limited to just the two payment options, using Stripe as a go-between gives you multiple ways for your customers to pay, and you don’t have to wait around for the money to come in.
PayPal
PayPal may already be a payment option you offer on your site, so adding a BNPL will be easy. PayPal gives customers the option to pay in 3 instalments, over the course of 2 months. There are no late fees, no interest and no setup fees for customers, plus your customers are protected by the same Buyer Protection already offered on regular PayPal payments.
So when setting up PayPal on your ecommerce site, make sure you click the option to give customers BNPL and add messaging to the section, letting them know about ‘Pay in 3’.
Get ahead of the rush
Make sure you’re ready for the Christmas rush and build an online store with our Ecommerce Website Builder. And you don’t need to be a designer or developer to get your site looking good! Pick from one of the templates, make some edits, add your products and away you go! Plus, don’t forget to add PayPal, WorldPay, Klarna or Stripe to give your customers the option to BNPL.
Or how about setting up your store using our WordPress Hosting? When you come to adding plugins, make sure you select Klarna. You get to choose which features you want to use, to improve the experience of your customers.
If you have any questions or just want to chat over your options, our team of experts are available 24/7 to help. Give us a call on 0333 0142 700 or send us a message via live chat.
