Buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Klarna on Tuesday (Nov. 9) expanded its offerings for U.S. consumers and retailers to include flexible payment for subscriptions. It is the first company in the country to offer a tool to manage payments for quarterly and annual subscriptions, memberships and more.
The expansion allows consumers to pay for their beauty, apparel and fitness purchases in four interest-free payments and track it through the Klarna app.
U.S. retail eCommerce sales are projected to grow to $28 billion in 2021, according to Insider Intelligence, which estimates that three-quarters of companies will offer subscription services for their direct-to-consumer (D2C) offerings by 2023.
“The subscriptions market has seen massive innovation in the last decade to meet increased demand and popularity amongst consumers,” said David Sykes, head of North America, Klarna, in the company announcement. “As competition intensifies, the brands that provide the best services across value, flexibility and a customer-obsessed experience will thrive.”
Klarna’s U.S.-based subscription service extends its global subscriptions offering, which is also available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Austria, the U.K. and the Netherlands. The company is planning to broaden the program to other countries next year.
Related news: Klarna Expands BNPL Services to Ireland
Meanwhile, Klarna now offers interest-free ‘Pay in 3’ installments on its app and through retail partners in Ireland, as debit card spending expanded three times faster than credit cards from 2015 to 2020 in that country.
Klarna Co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski sees Ireland as a perfect fit for the company, since people there are favoring debit spending over credit and “older-style financial institutions [are exiting] the market.”
Shoppers in Ireland can use Klarna’s Shop Anywhere functionality on the app to make eCommerce purchases at any merchant, even if the shop is not a Klarna retail partner, and can then manage and track all payments.
Also see: BNPL Firm Klarna Launches All-in-One Shopping App
Klarna last week rolled out a one-stop shopping app across its markets, allowing customers to shop at all online stores, peruse exclusive offers, take advantage of curated shopping collections, save items, receive notifications for price decreases, view delivery tracking and manage payments and returns.
The app is available for download on iOS and Android mobile devices in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Poland and France.
