Dhotis to Guitar: What people are buying with Buy Now Pay Later across India

The ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL) trend in India is now catching up with products beyond smartphones. According to a survey, the BNPL trend has made inroads in newer categories. People are now willing to pay in EMIs for products such as musical instruments, mechanisation of the kitchen to even use of hair treatment products in a stay at home, work from home scenario.

The survey by Mswipe on transactions across different merchant categories found that metro cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi have seen a growing use of BNPL for hair loss and thinning treatments, indicating continued anxiety levels owing to COVID 19. The average transaction size observed for hair thinning and hair loss treatment was Rs 43,000, indicating a receding hairline troubling people living in metros.

Mswipe offers BNPL or checkout finance through its Brand EMI offerings to SMEs across Mobiles, Consumer Durables, Education, Health, Furniture, Wellness and Luxury segments.

People in western India are using BNPL to buy musical instruments. The survey said that purchase of Guitar and Piano, with an average transaction size of Rs 40,000 has been noted in Pune and Mumbai through the instant checkout finance option offered on Mswipe POS Terminals.

In states like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam, a growing dependence on BNPL for mechanisation of the kitchen has been noticed. Customers in these states are buying Chimney, Cooktops, Hobs, Built-in Oven, Cooking Range among others. Mswipe witnessed an average ticket size of Rs 20, 000 for these products purchased on BNPL.

The BNPL led purchase for these kitchens items was observed in Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Jalandhar in Punjab, Lucknow, Varanasi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Delhi, Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Guwahati and Kolkata in Eastern India.

The survey said that the mechanisation of kitchen in a work from home economy was also seen in Southern cities of Chennai and Coimbatore and western cities of Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara.

With work from home being the norm in the time of COVID-19, office goers in Southern part of the country, especially in cities of Chennai, Coimbatore and Erode in Tamil Nadu and Trivandrum, Ernakulam, Angamaly, Calicut and Kannur in Kerala are found to be using BNPL for purchasing formal and casual shirts and dhotis, the survey said.

Mswipe’s Brand EMI service enables merchants to offer zero-interest EMI financing from over 30 brands in less than 15 seconds.