Clearpay rolls out fractional payment offering to small merchants

Clearpay, a leader in 'Buy Now, Pay Later' payments known as Afterpay outside the UK and Europe, has unveiled an in-store split payment offering available to small and medium-sized businesses in the UK.

FACTS

• Clearpay launched its 'pay in 4' in-store offering to major merchants in November 2021.

• Activating the functionality is quick and easy, a merchant simply needs to accept contactless payments.

• Customers can simply click to pay using a virtual system created on the fly and stored in the Clearpay app.

• Customers can pay for their in-store purchases in four instalments, without interest.

CHALLENGES

• Demonstrate its attraction: During its recent three-day sales event, Clearpay Day, SMEs saw a 32% increase in sales and a 33% increase in new active customers, demonstrating to small retailers the conversion potential of its 3 million UK customers.

• Opening up an important new consumer channel: In-store Clearpay card payments account for over 10% of Clearpay omnichannel merchants' total volume, with a higher average order value in-store compared to online.

• Keeping up with consumer trends: Research on the topic shows that Gen Z and millennials are particularly redirecting their spending to small businesses, accounting for 70% of their budget.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• With this new offer, Clearpay follows closely on the heels of its competitor Klarna, which launched a physical payment card, the Klarna card, last January, with the aim of distributing its fractional payment offer directly in-store.

• However, the Clearpay offer is different because it is based on a virtual card system, which is therefore dematerialised, but which will be accepted almost as widely, since it only requires contactless payment, which is widely accepted today.