Buy now, Pay later: Sephora Canada signs a deal with PayBright

23-Jul-2020 - Last updated on 23-Jul-2020 at 18:21 GMT

Related tags consumer behavior Sephora retail

The beauty retailer already offers US consumers an installment payments option in partnership with Klarna, a Sweden-based bank and financial services company. Now, a deal with Paybright brings that same financing option to beauty consumers in Canada.

This week, Sephora Canada announced its new partnership with Canada-based third-party financing provider PayBright. (In March 2019, Klarna signed a deal with PayBright as a way to provide services to clients in Canada.)

“We are proud to partner with Sephora Canada and offer their Canadian customer bases an even better digital shopping experience,” says Wayne Pommen, President and CEO of PayBright, in the press release announcing the partnership.

“Shoppers appreciate financial flexibility - especially now,” remarks Pommen, adding that, “We are delighted to welcome Sephora Canada to our growing roster of leading merchants whose customers already enjoy PayBright at checkout, and to bring an exciting new merchant partner to our fast-growing user base in Canada.”

PayBright counts beauty companies like Nudestix, Luxy Hair, The iBrow Academy, Love’s In The Hair, SNOB, and OutLash Extensions Pro among its clients as well as companies across industry sectors like Wayfair, eBay, Casper, Steve Madden, and many more (in total, over 6,000 merchants in and beyond Canada).

An option to pay for beauty product over time

Deborah Neff, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Sephora Canada, shares this insight into the beauty retailer’s decision to introduce an installment payments option: “Since opening our first Sephora Canada location in 2004, we've continually invested in improving our Canadian client experience through ease and convenience both in-store and online,” she says.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with PayBright and are pleased that Sephora Canada's beauty community will now have increased payment flexibility as part of the seamless shopping experience they've come to expect.”

Now shoppers buying cosmetics, personal care, fragrance, etc. on sephor.ca can opt to pay in four interest-free installments with PayBright. And it’s expected that this will mean higher conversion rates, larger cart sizes, and more traffic for the beauty retailer.

Installment payment services are popular across industries and worldwide. AfterPay, an Australia-based financial tech company, founded in 2014 is just one other example; and QVC’s EasyPay financing option another.

The concept has really picked up momentum as Millennials and younger generations of consumers have sought out alternatives to conventional credit cards.