Fifty percent of consumers in Europe say that they use instalment payments or pay-later services. The majority of them do this several times a year. The use of delayed paying is a lot less popular in Switzerland, where only a quarter of respondents said that they use it while shopping online.
This data comes from a survey commissioned by Galaxus, an online department store and Switzerland’s biggest ecommerce company. Over 2,600 respondents aged between 15 and 79 years old were surveyed in Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland.
55% of French consumers use BNPL
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is a popular online payment method, where consumers pay for their order after receiving it. In France, this payment method seems to be the most popular, as 55 percent of consumers said that they use it. It is followed by Germany, with 49 percent. In third place comes Austria (43 percent), followed by Italy (41 percent).
8% of Germans choose BNPL weekly
In all countries that were surveyed, most consumers said that they use BNPL services for several purchases per year, by invoice or installments. In Germany, however, even 21 percent of consumers said that they delay paying for purchases on a monthly basis. And 8 percent do this weekly.
As mentioned before, Swiss consumers rarely use BNPL. The consumers that do use it, do this once a year or less (40 percent). A smaller group (29 percent) does it several times per year. Consumers in this country also made up the biggest group (20 percent) of consumers who said that making regular instalment payments strongly, or very strongly, impacts their mental health.
20% of Swiss consumers said that making instalment payments strongly impacts their mental health
Reasons to choose pay-later services
Most consumers said that they choose BNPL because they can easily incorporate the payments into their monthly budget. For around 25 percent of BNPL users in Europe, paying in instalments is simply more convenient. Another sixth of respondents said that instalment payments make products seem less expensive.
Electronics most often paid for in instalments
In almost all of the countries surveyed, most consumers who pay in instalments choose to do so when they are buying electronics. For example, this was the case in Germany (50 percent), Italy (54 percent) and in France (44 percent). Switzerland was the only country where the category cars and motorbikes was cited as a more typical instalment-based purchase than electronics.
Products in the category Fashion were paid for in instalments by around a quarter of consumers in Germany and Austria. This figure is a lot higher than in the other countries. At the same time, around 40 percent of consumers in France and Italy said that they pay for household appliances in instalments. This was also a bigger share than in the other countries surveyed.
