Over 50% increase in BNPL usage this Black Friday, Mollie’s data says

By Gaia Lamperti

This year, Black Friday, Cyber Week and Cyber Monday have seen ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) purchases rocket in popularity. Mollie, one of the fastest-growing payment service providers in Europe, has revealed its annual insights into online payment trends for small and medium-sized retailers during those days of intense activity.

The analysis spans over 125,000 merchants across Europe, primarily from Germany, the UK, France, the Netherlands and Belgium but there was one key finding that stood out across different countries. The share of BNPL methods used for online purchases increased by 51%, making it clear that the likes of BNPL methods, such as Klarna or Zilch are on the rise and probably here to stay for the long rune. The figures were in line with last year’s findings that saw BNPL more than double from 2020 to 2019.

“Last year’s data hinted at the rapid growth of Buy Now, Pay Later methods for small and medium-sized merchants. Our 2021 data shows strong, meaningful growth, driven by the flexibility and choice BNPL offers consumers,” said Ken Serdons, Chief Commercial Officer at Mollie. “The majority of regions analysed last year were under severe pandemic lockdown, yet restrictions have somewhat eased across Europe this year. With that shift, some may have expected shoppers to return to brick-and-mortar stores – but this is not the case and consumer confidence in e-commerce has continued to grow. What is interesting is that Black Friday was out-performed by Cyber Monday and Cyber Week as a whole, suggesting it’s become less about a single day, and more about a shopping week.”

Payment methods and merchant performance

• Payment by BNPL methods more than doubled from 2019 to 2020. This year, BNPL usage increased by 51% for online purchases.
• Small and medium-sized merchants across Europe experienced a 102% increase in the overall volume of transactions on Black Friday versus the Friday prior.
• For Cyber Monday, there was an increase of 16% in the overall volume of transactions versus the Monday before.
• The times of the highest transaction volumes on Black Friday differed by country. In Germany, the key shopping period was 11:00 – 12:00, in France 19:00 – 20:00, in the Netherlands 13:00 – 14:00 and in Belgium 16:00 – 17:00.
• Black Friday contributed 21% of the transaction volume of Cyber Week, excluding Cyber Monday.

Category insights

• Average transaction volumes and values increased in clothing, shoes and accessories, home electronics and sporting goods categories.
• Sporting goods was the ‘star’ of this year’s Black Friday, experiencing eight times the average transaction value increase of clothing, shoes and accessories.
• Clothing, shoes and accessories merchants performed well across Cyber Week and Black Friday, but Cyber Monday proved the strongest day within the period. The volume growth increase on Cyber Monday was nearly two times that of Black Friday.