Black Friday is finally upon us, and all our wallets are crying for mercy. But it doesn't have to be this way.
I started using BNPL services back in December last year. In case you don't already know what that is (and honestly, good on you for being able to resist for so long) these are Buy Now, Pay Later services, similar to a Laybuy payment plan where only a portion of the cost is paid upfront, with the rest paid off in instalments.
Different to the traditional laybuy system, however, BNPL ensures you're able to take home your products right away, rather than waiting until everything is paid off.
Most popularly, such as with services like the BNPL giant Afterpay, this is done via four easy installments. These are taken out via automatic payments once every fortnight, with helpful prompting from the company a few days ahead so you have ample time to prepare.
In some other services, such as Zippay, these automatic payments are processed weekly as a small portion of the overall cost. (E.g. $10 a week over over 5 months to pay off a $200 order.)
So here's the big question: are these services actually worth it?
My answer: yes.
Christmas is hard enough already. Christmas shopping in the middle of a pandemic? A nightmare. Now, more than ever, we're seeing far more people turn to online shopping, which can end up being a lot pricier than traipsing your local shopping mall for off-the-shelf bargains. There's shipping to consider, plus all the other costs associated with that sweet, sweet temptation we all feel to click 'express checkout' and worry about the consequences later.
BNPL services are an easy way to ensure that your budget is sorted ahead of time. Rather than shelling out the full $100 for that new Funko Pop! Vinyl bundle, for example, and having to regretfully watch your entire paycheck drain in one go, services like Afterpay help you take it home straight away at only a quarter of the cost. You won't even have to worry about that next $25 payment for at least two weeks, which gives you even more time to save a couple of pennies here and there to pay it off. By the time you receive that prompt that tells you you've got an automatic payment coming up, you're good to go.
There's not really any escaping the fact that automatic payments, subscription services, and BNPL are all the way of the future. How many of us gladly let Netflix, Spotify and Disney+ snag a few bucks from our paycheck every week without even noticing? I've found BNPL services to be quite similar, in that by the time I've paid off the order, I've barely noticed the payments themselves. As long as you're not going overboard (and Afterpay, for example, will set a particular limit for each shopper to ensure that this is not an issue) it's a painless, easy-to-use payment method that I recommend to everyone.
With Black Friday mere hours away and many sites already offering early discounts (psst - have you joined the Ozzie Club yet?), Afterpay remains a great option to ensure you're saving as much as possible during the actual sale. Discount codes, automatic discounts, and special deals on Ozzie Collectables are not limited only to traditional payment methods, so that bundle that's already been discounted up to 70%? You're paying even less for that at only a quarter up front with Afterpay. It's a no-brainer win-win.
Look, everybody's different. BNPL certainly isn't for everyone. At the end of the day, how you manage your finances is entirely up to you, and there are always going to be those that prefer to manage each dollar at a time, who already budgeted ahead of time with a special savings account just for the holidays, or who just aren't that into the whole automatic payment thing. To each their own. But for those of us who have found more ease through BNPL in the past or are looking to dip their toes into a more structured way of budgeting their holiday shopping, you really can't go wrong.
Ozzie Collectables currently offers a number of different Buy Now, Pay Later services available at checkout for your convenience. You can use these on the entirety of our Black Friday range. Save by shopping our already mega-discounted Black Friday category from midnight tonight, and use our code BFCM2021 at checkout for 10% off everything else site-wide.
Ready? Get collecting!
Happy Black Friday, everyone, and best of luck completing your Christmas shopping. What do you think of Buy Now, Pay Later services? Do you use any? Leave us a comment!