The most beautiful of all shopping worlds looks something like this: Consumers are overjoyed because they can shop to their heart's content without worrying about their current account balance.

The dealers are infinitely enthusiastic because the unbridled desire to buy fills their coffers.

And the companies that handle all payments between customers and merchants in the background go crazy because they collect huge chunks of fees for their service.

What sounds like paradisiacal conditions and bliss for everyone is part of reality.

The fact that this promising shopping world also harbors unpleasant risks for consumers is generally ignored.

Thomas Klemm

Editor in the "Money & More" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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In the corona pandemic, when shops and department stores were temporarily closed and people did more work from home with laptops or smartphones, online shopping was given a further boost. In doing so, consumers were able to find out that, beyond the almost infinite range of products, the internet is turning out to be a place of unlimited possibilities. This is due to an invention that, on closer inspection, looks well-known, but could entail serious changes again. The English magic word is “Buy now, pay later”, always abbreviated to BNPL by those in the know. The principle is very simple and is part of the name: buy now, pay later.

Anyone who claims that something like this has been around for a long time is in principle right: Anyone who buys on account thanks to a good credit rating online, as many Germans continue to do

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, only pays when the ordered goods have arrived is and meets expectations. Those who use so-called revolving credit cards are also familiar with the payment principle. And if you take out a consumer loan to be able to afford a large purchase such as a car, a fitted kitchen or a living room furniture, you will also receive the good pieces immediately and then stutter the price in installments over a maximum of 72 months and pay interest.

In principle, “Buy now, pay later” is old wine in new bottles. However, to stay in the picture, the hoses now have a handy name, but above all they are very easy to use. Large BNPL providers such as Vorreiter Klarna from Sweden, AfterPay from Australia and Affirm from the USA easily and skillfully integrate the payment method into the websites of online retailers. The goal: The consumer should not actually notice that he is paying.

A consumer does not have to fill out laborious forms in order to get a loan and does not have to disclose his creditworthiness. Instead, he can decide with a click, for example at Klarna, whether he wants to pay the money two weeks after receiving the goods or whether he wants to buy the right to pay off the invoice amount in installments over four weeks for a fixed amount of 5 or 10 euros. Nobody has to worry that their own bank account may be in the red at the time of purchase. The desire to consume is not diminished by the burden of paying - this is how the new shopping world works.

In fact, experience reports and studies show that the less effort involved in paying, the more often there are spontaneous purchases - called “impulse purchases” - and the less often purchase processes are annoyed. Thanks to BNPL, comparatively cheap purchases such as jeans, sneakers or an office lamp are ordered with nimble fingers - be it on the computer or in the app.