Buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Affirm has launched two new payment options.
The company on Thursday (June 6) announced the debut of Pay in 2 and Pay in 30, designed to offer customers more flexibility and affordability.
As the name suggests, the new offerings let consumers split the cost of their purchase into two interest-free payments each month, or to pay in full interest-free within 30 days of their purchase. It joins Affirm’s Pay in 4 and monthly installment plans.
“Roughly 80% of e-commerce transactions in the United States are for purchases under $150,” Vishal Kapoor, head of product at Affirm, said in a news release emailed to PYMNTS.
“Providing greater choice and flexibility is key to meeting our consumers where they are,” Kapoor added. “Adding options like Pay in 2 and Pay in 30 allows us to better meet consumers’ individual preferences, enabling them to pay for purchases large or small with more options that works best for their budgets.”
The company pointed to Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that more than 30% of non-farm workers are paid either semi-monthly or monthly.
According to the release, Affirm has seen an uptick in cart conversion within its app since offering its Pay in 2 and Pay in 30 options. The company plans to test and roll out these options more broadly to its merchant partners in the months ahead.
Elsewhere in the BNPL space, recent research by PYMNTS Intelligence — per the report “Divided, Not Conquered: Acquirer and Merchant Confusion Clouds Split-Payments Landscape” — found that in-store shoppers are unlikely to be offered pay later options, even as the payment method catches on digitally.
“Supplemental research from the report found that 35% of merchants offer BNPL online during checkout, while only about half of that share do so during checkout in the physical store,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “Similarly, consumers are twice as likely to be told about BNPL options before checkout online as they are to be informed via signage in physical stores.”
And many consumers say they want in-store BNPL options. Separate PYMNTS Intelligence research found that about a third of consumers expressed a desire for BNPL to be more widely available from brick-and-mortar merchants.
Meanwhile, PYMNTS also wrote last month about the popularity of BNPL among Generation Z consumers, who are more than 50% likelier than the population overall to find pay later options very or extremely important when picking a merchant. And one in three consumers in this age group find these options important, compared to 20% for the overall population.
