New Delhi: The ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL) trend, which has primarily been popular in purchase of smartphones, has made inroads in newer categories with the EMI economy finding relevance in products such as garments, musical instruments, mechanisation of kitchen to even hair treatment products in a stay at home, work from home scenario.

According to the findings, people in the National Capital are availing BNPL for personal care, especially Hair loss and thinning treatments. Mswipe’s merchants are seeing high adoption in Mumbai and Bengaluru besides Delhi, indicating continued anxiety levels in metro cities owing to COVID 19. Mechanisation of kitchen in a work from home economy is another category being availed on BNPL in Delhi.  

These insights have emerged during an assessment of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) transactions across different merchant categories of Mswipe India’s leading end-to-end digital enabler of SMEs and the largest POS acquirer in the country. Mswipe offers BNPL  or checkout finance through its Brand EMI offerings to SMEs across Mobiles, Consumer Durables, Education, Health, Furniture, Wellness and Luxury segments.

Manish Patel, Founder and CEO, Mswipe said, “The insights reveal a fundamental shift in the behaviour of consumer both in terms of their lifestyle choices and their financing preferences. The growing EMI economy creates opportunities for small businesses that have not been using checkout finance as an incentive for their customers up until now. Mswipe’s Brand EMI empowers retailers to offer the freedom to choose payment terms, thereby giving a fulfilling shopping experience to their customers.”

The average transaction size observed for hair thinning and hair loss treatment was INR 43,000 indicating a receding hair line troubling people living in metros. Whereas, Mswipe merchants saw growing dependence on BNPL for mechanisation of kitchen with customers buying Chimney, Cooktops, Hobs, Built in Oven, Cooking Range among others with an average ticket size of INR 20, 000.

Mechanisation of kitchen is a category that was availed by people not just in Delhi but across the country. Right from southern cities of Chennai and Coimbatore to western cities of Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara, along with northern and eastern belt running across Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam.

Mswipe had launched Brand EMI late last year as a value added service which enables merchants to offer zero interest EMI financing from over 30 brands in less than 15 seconds. This drastically improves the checkout process, and reduces cart abandonment due to lack of suitable financing options, thereby helping small businesses drive sales.