Buy now, pay later (BNPL) financing is fast becoming a popular option at the checkout, with roughly 100 million Americans saying they’ve used a BNPL service in the last six months, according to the latest survey results from Finder’s Consumer Confidence Index.
How often are we selecting that BNPL button?
In the last six months, the average American adult selected BNPL as their payment option for 1.5 of their purchases. Collectively, 38% of adult consumers said they used BNPL at least once, with 5% saying they used it on 10 or more purchases.
How much do people owe on BNPL?
The average BNPL user is carrying $2,479 in debt, a number that has ebbed and flowed over the past four surveys. In October 2022, that figure was $966, before jumping to $2,445 in January 2023 (no doubt a hangover from Christmas) and dipping down to $1,190 in April.
And it should come as no surprise that the more likely someone is to use BNPL services, the more debt they’re carrying. Those who made five or fewer BNPL purchases owe around $1,953 compared to $3,432 to those using these service on more than five occasions in the last six months.
Men more likely to be using BNPL than women
Almost half (47%) of the men surveyed said they had used BNPL in the last six months, compared to 30% of women.
Men are also carrying more debt than women, with men owing $2,759 compared to $2,057 for women.
BNPL is an age thing
Just 6% of baby boomers surveyed said they’d used BNPL in the last six months, compared to 62% of millennials and 60% of gen Z.
Gen Z is carrying the most debt at $3,129 compared to $2,017 for boomers.
BNPL most used in the West
Close to half (45%) of those surveyed in the West say they have used BNPL services to buy something in the last half a year, while just 28% said the same in the Midwest.
However, while there is quite the gulf between how much the West and Midwest are using BNPL services, only $56 separates what either region is carrying in debt, with those in the West owing an average of $2,948 compared to $2,892 in the Midwest.
Mo’ money, mo’ purchases
Individuals or households with an annual income of over $100,000 (55%) are more likely to be using BNPL services than those earning under $100K (32%). Almost 1 in 10 (9%) of those earning over $100K say they used these services on 10 or more occasions in the last six months.
Those earning the big bucks also carry a lot more debt, with those earning six figures ($3,707) owing more than double that of those earning under $100K ($1,626).
Methodology
Finder’s Consumer Confidence Index is an ongoing quarterly nationally representative survey, so far polling more than 8,000 American adults, asking questions relating to household finances. First collected October 4-19, 2022, with the second run of the survey running between January 9 to February 17, 2023, April 11-20, 2023 and most recently July 6-18, 2023.
Our data is based on an online survey of 2,056 US adults commissioned by Finder and conducted by Qualtrics/SAP from July 6-18, 2023, with representative quotas for gender, age and states.
We assume the 2,056 participants in our survey represent the US population of 260.9 million Americans who are at least 18 years old, according to the July 2022 US Census Bureau population estimate. This assumption is made at the 95% confidence level with a 2% margin of error.
We define generations by birth year according to the Pew Research Center’s generational guidelines, though we’ve combined baby boomers and the silent generation into a single group for sampling ease:
Gen Z — any adults born post-1997
Millennials — 1981–1996
Gen X — 1965–1980
Baby boomers — anyone born pre-1964
We define geographical regions as defined by the US Census Bureau.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) services are having a moment right now, but is the ease of making purchases a double-edged sword? Finder surveyed 32,771 internet users across 23 countries and found that people from the United States rank 21st for BNPL remorse, with 9% saying they’d made a buy now, pay later mistake. This is below the global average of 17% and behind countries like Germany (10%) and Canada (11%).
The most common BNPL mistake in the United States is impulsively buying something, with 4.9% saying they’d made an impulse purchase. The next most common BNPL mistakes are buying the more expensive option (2.2%) and paying a late fee (3%).
Men lead the way in BNPL mistakes in the United States
Men (9.4%) are more likely than women (8.3%) to say they’ve made a BNPL mistake.
However, in two out of the five BNPL mistake categories, women were more likely than men to say that they’d made a BNPL error, including:
Buying the more expensive option (2.6%).
Going into overdraft (2.3%).
As for those not using BNPL services, more women (29.6%) than men (22.9%) say they’ve never used a BNPL service.
People age 55 to 64 are the most likely to have made a BNPL error
In the United States, those aged 55 to 64 lead the way in making BNPL mistakes, with 12.3% saying they’d had a purchase issue of some kind using installment payment services. The next group most likely to have a BNPL mishap was those aged 35 to 44 (10.7%), followed by people aged 25 to 34 (10.3%).
Global BNPL mistake trends
The most common BNPL error was making impulse purchases, with 10% saying they'd made a buy now, pay later mistake saying they'd bought an item on a whim. This was at its highest in Vietnam, with 24% of those in Vietnam buying items on impulse, followed by Thailand (20%) and Sweden (14%).
Getting stuck with late fees was the next most common BNPL mistake, with around 4% saying they'd paid a penalty for not making a payment on time. Those surveyed in Malaysia were most likely to be slugged with buy now, pay later late fees at 9.1%, followed by India (9.08%) and Vietnam (8.7%).
Going overboard on spending was also a somewhat common problem for those who'd made BNPL mistakes, with 3% saying they'd overstretched their budget. Respondents in Vietnam were most susceptible to overspending, with 5% of respondents blowing their budgets. Not too far behind Vietnam is Thailand (5.4%) followed by Italy (5.1%).
Interestingly, 34.5% of people in Spain said they'd never used a BNPL service, closely followed by 32.3% of Mexicans and 26.3% of people in the US.
Men more likely to have BNPL remorse
Men are more likely to say they made a BNPL error than women, with an average of 18.3% of men saying they've made a BNPL mistake compared to 16.2% of women. In fact, in 14 out of the 21 countries surveyed men were more likely to say they'd made a BNPL mistake than women.
The highest percentage of men staying they had buyers remorse following a BNPL purchase was in Thailand at 41.5%. The highest percentage of women making buy now, pay later mistakes was in Vietnam, with 38.1%.
Methodology
Finder surveyed 32,771 Internet users across 23 countries in March of 2021 asking them if they'd used Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services and if they'd run into some common mistakes. Due to the varying Google infrastructure in each territory, not all surveys were nationally representative. Where a nationally representative sample was unavailable, a natural fall/convenience sample was used. For these, Google didn't use stratified sampling but did apply weights to the survey results if the demographics of the survey respondents didn't vary too far from demographics data, as per the details of Google's survey methodology. The analysis of the results of the survey was completed using Google Data Studio, which weights the responses. The list of the countries studied, sample sizes and survey types are presented below:
The Australia Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 753 Internet users.
The Austria Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,228 Internet users.
The Canada Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 1,201 Internet users.
The Denmark Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 742 Internet users.
The France Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 1,532 Internet users.
The Germany Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 2,001 Internet users.
The Hong Kong Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,003 Internet users.
The India Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 2,502 Internet users.
The Indonesia Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 2,011 Internet users.
The Ireland Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,228 Internet users.
The Italy Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,506 Internet users.
The Malaysia Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,501 Internet users.
The Mexico Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 2,002 Internet users.
The Netherlands Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,201 Internet users.
The New Zealand Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,003 Internet users.
The Norway Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,202 Internet users.
The Philippines Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 2,004 Internet users.
The South Africa Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,503 Internet users.
The Spain Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 1,512 Internet users.
The Sweden Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 876 Internet users.
The Thailand Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 878 Internet users.
The United States Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a nationally representative sampling of 2,001 Internet users.
The Vietnam Buy Now, Pay Later survey is the analysis of a convenience sampling of 1,381 Internet users.
Image: Getty
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Richard Laycock is Finder’s NYC-based lead editor & insights editor, spending the last decade data diving, writing and editing articles about all things personal finance. His musings can be found across the web including on NASDAQ, MoneyMag, Yahoo Finance and Travel Weekly. Richard studied Media at Macquarie University, including a semester abroad at The Missouri School of Journalism (MIZZOU). See full bio
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