Square Sellers in Canada Can Now Offer Buy Now, Pay Later Through Afterpay

Square launches its first integration with Afterpay in Canada, providing “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) functionality to sellers using Square’s e-commerce products across the country. The integration will enable Square sellers in Canada to offer Afterpay’s BNPL experience to their customers, helping them attract new shoppers and drive incremental revenue.

“We’ve been using Square Online since we launched, and it’s been fantastic. We’ve also seen that BNPL options typically lead to sales increasing 20 to 30 per cent, so when we learned that we could now offer Afterpay, we were eager to implement it,” said Susan Pond, owner of Fab Finds Online, an e-commerce patio furniture and home goods marketplace headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario. “Sometimes people are looking at high-ticket items, which they can afford, but would simply prefer to pay in manageable instalments to avoid any expensive fees and credit card interest. Afterpay allows people to break their payments down, and does so without the onus being on us. This is a huge benefit to our business.”

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The buy now, pay later model has already taken off in Canada, fuelled by the accelerated shift to e-commerce during the pandemic. BNPL payments are projected to grow 63.5 per cent and reach $5.9 billion in Canada in 2022, according to data analytics company Research and Markets. Canadian gen Z and millennials aged 18-44 use BNPL the most of any other consumer segments, according to a recent pilot study by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.

Since integration has taken place across the U.S and Australia, a combined Square and Afterpay has already proven to attract new shoppers and drive incremental revenue for sellers of all sizes. Sellers using Square Online are seeing the following impact on their businesses:

• Transaction sizes are up: Across both the U.S. and Australia, the average transaction size with Afterpay is 3x greater than non-BNPL purchases.
• Rapid growth in buyers: Globally, we observed a 180 per cent increase in new consumers leveraging Afterpay through Square sellers between February and March 2022.
• Meaningful growth among key merchant categories: In the U.S., retail businesses that offered Afterpay as a payments option on their website are seeing a meaningful lift in overall online sales, with men’s and women’s clothing stores growing 17 per cent; specialized apparel and accessories, 15 per cent; pet stores, 13 per cent; sporting goods stores, 12 per cent; and jewellery and watch shops, 10 per cent. In both countries, beauty and personal care businesses saw significant upticks in online sales, registering a 26 per cent increase in Australia and a 16 per cent increase in the U.S.

“From our earliest days, Square has focused on building flexible omnichannel commerce solutions to empower entrepreneurs and the launch of Afterpay in Canada – one of our largest international markets – is one more step in that direction,” said Alyssa Henry, Head of Square. “The integration with Afterpay helps us further our priority of global expansion while bringing even more businesses of all sizes into the Square ecosystem.”

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“In a short amount of time together, Square and Afterpay have already proven to attract new shoppers and drive significant incremental revenue for businesses,” said Nick Molnar, Afterpay co-founder and Afterpay lead at Square. “From large, well-established enterprises, to smaller companies just getting started and everyone else in between, we look forward to giving Canadian sellers the tools to attract young, engaged shoppers who prefer to use Afterpay to shop flexibly for their everyday essentials.”

Afterpay is available today to eligible sellers in Canada using Square Online store and Square Online Checkout links for e-commerce, who can try Afterpay for no extra cost until December 31. Sellers can access Afterpay from Account & Settings on their Square Dashboard and opt in to receive early access to Afterpay now, with automatic enablement rolling out to eligible Square e-commerce sellers over the following weeks. Afterpay can be easily toggled on or off via sellers’ Account & Settings on their Square Dashboard at any time. During the promotional period, Afterpay transactions are processed at sellers’ standard e-commerce processing rates. Square sellers receive their full earnings from each sale immediately (minus associated transaction fees and applicable taxes), while consumers pay over four instalments.