{"id":118238,"date":"2020-09-28T13:22:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T17:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.borndigital.com\/?p=118238"},"modified":"2021-05-28T15:27:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T19:27:02","slug":"target-begins-testing-buy-now-pay-later-pilot","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/target-begins-testing-buy-now-pay-later-pilot","title":{"rendered":"Target Begins Testing Buy Now, Pay Later Pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Need to Know<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Sezzle, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform, is launching a test pilot on Target.com.<\/li><li>The pilot will run as a small number of tests and make buy now, pay later financing available to a portion of Target.com customers in two product categories.<\/li><li>The pilot is temporary, and there is no guarantee of a subsequent partnership between Sezzle and Target.<\/li><li>BNPL has gained a major following in North America as leading payments companies such as PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and more look to incorporate different methods of payment as options. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Analysis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As buy now, pay later financing options become more popular\u2014particularly among online shoppers\u2014retail giant Target is launching a pilot program with Sezzle to test BNPL functionality on its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pilot will incorporate Sezzle&#8217;s BNPL tech on Target.com, running a small number of tests making financing available to customers shopping in two product categories, in order in order to determine the efficacy of BNPL financing on Target&#8217;s website. The press release announcing the pilot test did not specify what those categories would be, nor how long the test would be running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The BNPL pilot between Target and Sezzle &#8220;does not represent any guarantee of a future commercial contract&#8221; according to a press release announcing the temporary proof of concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buy now, pay later financing has spiked in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, as more shoppers turn to e-commerce while experiencing financial insecurity due to the economic impacts of the pandemic. The financing function has been adopted by individual consumer brands, such as Fender, which <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/2020\/05\/27\/fender-announces-buy-now-pay-later-partnership-with-klarna\" target=\"_blank\">debuted BNPL functionality<\/a> in May, as well as payments systems operators such as PayPal, which <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/2020\/08\/31\/paypal-debuts-buy-now-pay-later-feature\" target=\"_blank\">made BNPL financing available<\/a> for purchases between $30 and $600 in August. Online retail giant Amazon, meanwhile, teamed up with Citibank in August <a href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/2020\/08\/04\/citi-introduces-buy-now-pay-later-option-for-amazon-purchases\">to launch Citi Flex Pay<\/a>, which allows shoppers purchasing on Amazon to select payment options, which range from three- to 48-month terms, at checkout. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For its part, Sezzle has seen massive growth in the four years since its launch, announcing that it <a href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/2020\/02\/12\/sezzles-buy-now-pay-later-platform-reaches-one-million-members\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hit one million members<\/a> in February 2020. If Target adopts BNPL tech, it would be just the latest step in the big-box retailer&#8217;s commitment to digital innovation in the wake of a wave of shoppers migrating towards e-commerce during the pandemic. The company <a href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/2020\/08\/19\/target-adds-10-million-digital-customers-in-six-months\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">added 10 million digital customers<\/a> in the first six months of 2020, posting massive profit spikes due to the jump in online shopping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking ahead into the final months of 2020, Target has continued its commitment to digital, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/2020\/09\/25\/target-to-focus-seasonal-expansion-on-e-commerce\" target=\"_blank\">revealing last week<\/a> that the majority of its seasonal hires will be dedicated to fulfilling online orders, including facilitating in-store and curbside pickup and adding additional staff to order fulfillment centers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Need to Know Sezzle, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform, is launching a test pilot on Target.com. The pilot will run as a small number of tests and make buy now, pay later financing available to a portion of Target.com customers in two product categories. The pilot is temporary, and there is no guarantee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76318,"featured_media":119259,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3404,3397,3414],"tags":[3567,2483],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-118238","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-News","category-payments","category-retail","category-technology-News","tag-bnpl","tag-target"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/118238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/76318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/118238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/119259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118238"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=118238"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=118238"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=118238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}