If you don't have a BNPL strategy, you're missing out 🫵; Social Shopping is the future of e-commerce? Klarna thinks so 🙋🏽‍♀️; Challenger Banks 2.0, the Vertical approach 📲

FinTech is Eating the World, 30 November

Hey Everyone,

And happy Wednesday! Today’s issue is both super interesting and really relevant to everyone in FinTech, both on macro and micro levels. We’re going to look at why you are missing out if you don't have a BNPL strategy in place (focus on the latest data + 3 actionable bonus reads), see whether Social Shopping is the future of e-commerce and why Klarna is betting on it (hint: you should too!), and Challenger Banks 2.0, or the Vertical approach (why it matters & how can you build a good biz on it). Let’s jump straight into the awesome stuff:

If you don't have a BNPL strategy, you're missing out 🫵

The data 📊 Despite inflation and fears of recession, consumers are spending more than ever before. According to new data from Mastercard MA 0.00%↑, American consumers spent the day of Thanksgiving shopping — both online & off — and dining out, leading to double-digit sales growth.

More on this 👉 The new data showed increases in spending across non-automotive categories: retail sales on Friday alone rose 12% year-over-year, with in-store sales increasing 12% and e-commerce sales seeing a growth of 14%. That’s pretty massive!

Overall, American online shoppers did a record $9.12 billion of spending this Black Friday alone.

The trends 📈 Pre-holiday shopping revealed some interesting trends that are super relevant for everyone in FinTech, e-commerce, and digital businesses per se:

• This year's online shopping season is expected to be the biggest ever. According to Adobe Analytics, total online sales for November and December are expected to be up 2.5% from last year.

• Internet spending is up 23% on the last pre-pandemic year as per Adobe.

• 48% of customers on Friday were using smartphones to buy their goodies. This is up from 44% last year. 

• But what’s really interesting is that online shoppers have also been using Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) schemes more than ever before

What does this mean? 🤔 In short, this means that if you don’t have a BNPL strategy already - you’re missing out. But let’s take a closer look at this, understand why it’s happening, what it means for payments players + the takeaway (& 3 actionable bonus reads on top):