Black Friday payment data reveals rapid growth of ‘pay later’ methods like Klarna

Mollie has revealed insights into the online payment trends this Black Friday. The data, which provides a year-on-year comparison of 2019, shows that payment methods allowing customers to pay flexibly - like ‘pay later’ service Klarna - have more than doubled in 2020. It spans more than 105,000 merchants across Europe, primarily from Germany, U.K., France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Mollie's Black Friday volume grew by 110% compared to 2019.

Black Friday trends:

– This year, merchants experienced a 56% increase in the overall number of transactions on Black Friday versus the previous year. That’s much more than in 2019 when the year-on-year growth was 36%.

– The peak of Black Friday is levelling off as merchants aim to spread their sales across the full week leading up to Black Friday. This year 19.6% of all transactions during the Black Friday week were processed on the Friday itself. Two years ago this was 22%.

– Use of ‘buy now, pay later’ services on Black Friday (such as Klarna or ClearPay) has more than doubled. Moreover the average value of ‘buy now, pay later’ transactions was 25% higher than transactions of other payment methods

– The share of mobile payment methods such as ApplePay on Black Friday also increased compared to last year

“There is a lot of pressure on consumers’ wallets at the moment, which is making people look to payment methods that offer them financial flexibility,” said Ken Serdons, Chief Commercial Officer at Mollie. “It makes sense that fintechs like Klarna, who have performed phenomenally well this year, have been so popular this Black Friday. The increase is in-line with this growing trend towards more optionality in how consumers pay for goods.”