BNPL at checkout is a conversion tool, not just a payment option
Merchants who treat buy now, pay later purely as a financing product are missing the point. The data in this piece makes the conversion case clearly: RBC Capital Markets estimates BNPL integration lifts retail conversion rates by 20 to 30 percent, and pushes average order value up by 30 to 50 percent. Those are not marginal gains. For most online retailers, numbers like that would represent a meaningful step change in revenue from the same volume of traffic.
The mechanism behind this is straightforward. Shoppers who can spread payments across four equal instalments aligned to their pay cycle are willing to commit to a higher basket value than they would with a single upfront charge. The article cites an average transaction value of around $200 for BNPL purchases, compared to roughly $100 for the same buyer without the option. That doubling of basket size cannot be achieved through discount promotions without destroying margin.
For Dutch and Belgian merchants, the lesson is directly applicable. The Netherlands and Belgium both have significant populations of younger shoppers who prefer debit-based spending and are cautious about revolving credit. BNPL providers like Klarna, which already has strong brand recognition in both markets, and Riverty in the Netherlands, address precisely that preference. Embedding BNPL prominently in the checkout flow rather than tucking it behind a secondary payment method selection screen is the practical implication here.
Visibility matters. Research consistently shows that surfacing instalment options early in the product and cart journey, not only at the payment step, drives the basket size effect. Shoppers who see a monthly amount on the product page shop differently than those who first encounter it at the final payment screen.
The actionable takeaway for merchants: audit where BNPL appears in your checkout flow. If it is presented as an afterthought rather than a primary option, you are likely leaving conversion and order value on the table.
Source: cnbc.com
