U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday
Usage of the flexible payment method hit an all-time high on Cyber Monday, driving $1.03 billion in online spend (up 4.2% YoY), as consumers looked for greater flexibility in managing their holiday budgets. The vast majority of BNPL transactions are happening on a mobile device as well, at 79.4% share on Cyber Monday (vs. desktop). In an Adobe survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers (conducted Nov. 2025), respondents said they were most likely to use BNPL for electronics, apparel, toys, and furniture purchases.
Source: Adobe Analytics.
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Man, say what you will about credit cards, but at the very least with many of those you get rewards of some sort. BNPL is just the consumer version of the payday loan; you get nothing but the scam.
Idk, I do them when there is no interest involved. Like my credit card I only do it when I have the money though.
For what reason? Am I missing out on something?
Seems like it's better to just pay now if you have the cash.
Assuming you need to buy the product, taking on zero interest debt gives you greater liquidity that you can theoretically activate elsewhere to improve your cash flow. For the amounts and time scales of BNPL, though, I don’t entirely see the point.
I don't do this for many things but i do use it sometimes
I've used care credit because a single emergency vet bill can be pricey and while I could empty my savings that's not the best idea. So I just pay it off within the promotional period. Worse case scenario I am in a position to secure a traditional personal loan to completely pay off that balance at a more favorable interest rate.
I used a 0% intro rate travel card for a European vacation once and it was great paying that off over a year.
That being said I wouldn't finance groceries or Christmas shopping. That's going a bit far
FTFY
Most BNPL services don't make classically hard inquiries, though - as I understand it that's actually a big part of the problem, because they are able to skirt a great deal of the credit regulations put in place to prevent predatory lending (yeah those exist - fucking terrifying, isn't it?) by not engaging directly with the credit agencies, instead relying on 3rd party consumer information data brokers of dubious reliability.
They don't make hard inquiries. That's kind of a huge fact of these services...
Um, they absolutely do. Stop by /r/churning if you'd like evidence; it's one of the main reasons BNPL services aside from credit cards are not used much there.
And there's your answer.
What happened to look through the fingers
How is that an answer? They said they only do it if they have the money, so why?
Eh, mostly just because less money coming out of my account at once feels better and there isn't a downside really. It's mostly like Amazon's pay in 4 etc, especially if I think there is a chance I might return it. I would not ever not pay it off and incur fees. Its nothing special, I don't touch afirm though generally just Amazon and paypals short duration things.
I got a car loan once even though I had the cash to buy outright. I didn’t want to drain my savings and end up high and dry if there was an emergency. It was worth it to me to pay a little interest so I still had a cash buffer.
If I were living paycheck to paycheck like many folks are, I imagine the logic would be similar for smaller purchases.
Are many of them no interest?
I'm not a BNPL user, but my understanding is that most are interest free (to attract more users) unless a borrower is late/misses a payment.
I assumed that was the trap, or retroactive interest. Just seems to prey on those already at financial disadvantage.
The BNPL company also charges the merchant much more than a credit card company does. Something like 6%. So they’re also making money on people who do pay in full at 0%.
The theory goes that the merchant is happy to pay the higher rate because it makes a sale happen that otherwise wouldn’t. Unfortunately that increased cost just gets added to the price everyone pays.
PayPal Pay In 4, Paypal 12 months (sometimes), Amazon Affirm, all no interest. Unless you miss the payment. Then bend over for it. Interests rates vary from 8 percent to 32 percent retroactive, depending on who you get it through. I've used BNPL several times, but always made sure I can afford the payment in the monthly budget, and only when it is zero interest.
In addition, I have the rule of "only one active BNPL at a time".
The rewards are there to keep you make them money.
Some one has to pay for the rewards and the multi billion dollar companies usually don't give money away for free without some plan. In the end, the consumer pays for the rewards because they add it on the product price.
Yeah, the card issuers are already making bank from the interchange/issuer/processing fees, as well as interest if the customer eventually isn't able to pay their full balance in time.
But if you're a perfect person and always pay your full balance every month, there's literally no negatives with a credit card as a normal consumer. It's usually even a better alternative, as if something goes wrong, a credit chargeback is much quicker and easier than a debit chargeback.
Remember kids: someone is making money off of this, and it’s not you. There’s a reason some European countries have (started to) put this BNPL under strict credit regulation.
I'm glad at least some countries are taking notice.
The Dutch national Financial Authority, for example, has a good explanation on why this is problematic and what exactly will happen per November 2026: https://www.afm.nl/en/sector/actueel/2025/juli/pb-marktupdate-BNPL-2025
Wait, it's legal to put minors into debt in the Netherlands? In Sweden, a minor wouldn't be liable to pay any such invoice, as minors can't sign any legally-binding agreements without their guardian's consent.
No it’s not legal. Currently BNPL just doesn’t fall under the same strict rules as normal debt. So the KYC rules are pretty lax. Minors can easily circumvent the checks.
Not the minor as I understand it, but the unknowing parents, yes. Do consult your international lawyers before setting up a Klarna or something.
Paypal had a 20% cashback thing going on when you use BNPL. I'm sure that contributed.
This is why I used it.
0% apr plus 20% back I mean come on!
Damn, that's a pretty decent deal for a big purchase.
Whhhaaaa is it over??
It's fucked but with a charitable view, I can see some logic.
For all the nonsense, there are a handful of good deals on the Friday/Monday. If I were living paycheque to paycheque, seems like a bnpl scheme could let me budget say, November to February for christmas gifts, interest free unlike a credit card.
That being said, that's the theory. I imagine a lot of folks end up in over their heads much like credit cards etc.
I would just reject consumerism and not buy anything. You very rarely save money by buying things, maybe some tools, or seeds/cuttings for things you can grow to eat.
This is the same as "I would just have a better job."
Some normal folks are out there, trying to give their kids as normal a life as they can despite their financial circumstances and not all of them are as enlightened as you claim to be online.
This wasn't a hypothetical. I lived on apprenticeship wages for a few years
And I just got a better job after having a bad one.
I've also known addicts who've quit.
Does that mean "just get a better job" "just quit your addiction" and "reject consumerism" are reasonable answers to people struggling?
Great points
Hey ya think if the coolest thing ever were rejecting consumerism it’d make it palatable? Like your kids’ friends relish in having only three high-quality outfits or something, and read library books for fun… (like their parents)… then maybe your kid doesn’t beg for the cool new toy.
Pipe dream ya just thinking in that case if commenting about rejecting consumerism helped spur a trend it might be OK. Think TikTok driving Stanley thermos sales but the opposite
Edit: “can we get minimalism viral again”
I've legit wondered about this and one of the many reasons I don't want kids is I don't think it'd be fair to inflict my lifestyle on them, no matter how morally correct I feel.
My basic thought though is that as long as social media is the dominant means by which cultural trends are spread and amplified, anti-consumerism will be hard to spread.
Once modern social media became dominant, social justice pivoted from our own sins (wearing slave made clothes, children losing limbs for our new phones etc) and switched to dunking on public figures and large systemic forces. I think that's because it's much easier to share, make jokes about etc evils that you are not currently doing. That is to say, it's a lot easier to make memes about say, OscarsSoWhite when none of us are in the Academy than say, "my shoes are made by kids who occasionally burn to death" while many folks are wearing those types of shoes.
the thing I don't understand with so many people being paycheque to paycheque is that, like, you need to come up with the money sooner or later. so just don't fucking spend it on what you don't absolutely need, and build up some savings.
like, I get that some people are literally hand to mouth, I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the people with a 2 year old car and newer clothing who claim paycheque to paycheque but use BNPL schemes. that's just shitty financial decisions. if you're financing every gift season, maybe... just save up a bit of money before each gift season by cutting back temporarily on something else? or do you like paying extra to be in debt unnecessarily? you clearly have the capacity to repay the loan, so just save for it ahead of time and pay less overall because no fees...
Yeah I don't know either. I never learnt to drive because of the cost so I didn't even have a car.
It really should be called "buy now, pay more later". When are these greedy fucks going to learn that it's not good when consumers don't have money to spend? If all their money goes towards interest payments then we see a collapse in demand.
Except many BNPL options are 0% interest rate. I just renovated an apartment with ikea stuff and they offered me 0% interest rate over 1 year - it makes no sense to not take this offer.
Many companies would gladly lose 4% (avg inflation) to guarantee a sale especially when dipping on loans are basically impossible today for the average consumer.
Until you miss a payment and they hit you with the fine for missing a payment.
THEY HAVE TO MAKE MONEY!
Just don't miss payments then. They make money from sales cut not from fees. E.g. Amazon will take 6% loss to get a sale giving Klarna 3% and losing 3% to inflation.
Looking at Klarna for example it's 5$ late fee and then it gets reported to relevant authorities (credit, collections etc.) and they just block you.
It's not that tricky like payday loans or similar. The issue at hand is really just people buying more than they can afford because they are not charged instantly.
They're still in the acquire customers and market share phase and the number of providers is increasing. Increase in fees and predatory aspects comes later in the enshittification phase.
Yeah but it's pretty nice to be able to take advantage of a promo deal as long as it's not a sticky long term relationship. Some people in this thread are talking about a reward system of 20% cash back on what you put on BNPL, and 0% interest, as some kind of Paypal promo going on during Black Friday.
If you take the deal as a one time thing, it's a great deal. They hope that you might get used to using the service next time it's not such a great deal, but if they don't have a way to lock you in, then just take the money and run.
See, for example, the glorious year of MoviePass setting its own money on fire. People got great deals on movie tickets, and then the company went bankrupt and didn't keep their customers.
Don't forget that a lot of them do bank on the fact that people don't pay back on time and then the over-the-top interest rates hit them.
So the less financially savvy or intelligent, Or just the unlucky. Are subsidizing the deals for the rest of us.
But while they're in these early phases, if you can take advantage of them, do s*** sucks enough. Might as well get something out of it.
What other fees are involved? Any monthky admin fees etc? If not then I 100% agree BNPL is the way to go
I'm not sure but Ikea's BNPL here has 0 fees.
There's never any administration fees. The whole trick to buy now pay later is they're making the money on two fronts, one just the interest rates of people who don't pay back on time and typically they'll just block you after the first instance and never do business with you again.
So that's not their primary money method cuz they rather not deal with that really. But it does bring them in some level of safety net.
But they're real money generator is they get a cut of the sales. It's a commission service. So the seller say Amazon loses out, say 5% of the sale to the buy. Now pay later company because the buy now pay later. Company secure to sell that Amazon otherwise would not have had.
So Amazon is losing a slight bit of money to make sure that more people are buying their goods by partnering with the by now pay later guys.
That's why the buy now pay layer deals are always so goods or it's an interest. No admin fees, competitive interest rates almost always equal to most even decent credit cards at most banks and credit unions.
Buy now pay later is a lot less scammy than you would think because they're not scamming the consumer. They're scamming the companies to make their money.
And yeah if you do miss a payment, the interest rates in what not suck but late fees are usually like $5. And it's usually a one-time offense and you're outsworded deal. You f****** one loan with like karna and they just ban you and send you to collections.
They're not in a business of scamming consumers. It's not worth the money when the real cash cow is those fat commissions.
I don’t know if we have enough information. I agree with you that BNPL purchases are typically bad for the consumer, but I don’t necessarily think any to call people greedy in a difficult economy. Sometimes, people end up in shitty situations, trying to keep their life together, even when they can’t afford to.
Was the volume items purchased greater than before or are prices just completely out of control? The article doesn’t indicate that it accounts for inflation. Inflation was about 3% and BNLPL was up 4%.
What about the types of items that were purchased? It doesn’t actually say what types of items were used to BNPL transactions so we don’t know if it was household needs or unnecessary consumption.
I'm calling the lenders greedy. BNPL is similar to payday loans, taking advantage of people who don't have money, making it cost more to be poor. The people who use BNPL are just being taken advantage of and suffer because of their situation.
Oh my mistake! Yeah we live in a dystopian nightmare and we don’t even have cool sci-fi shit to make up for it. Everything sucks
Yea, that's a really nice way to put it.
There is no debtor's prison in the usa. Charge everything you can, especially if you are poor. Let the chips fall where they may. With any luck the government will bail out the citizens like they do for the airlines, car companies and banks. /s
No debtors prison but there is a credit score. And that shit is the gateway to paying less for everything when you're borrowing money. Especially for a mortgage on a house so you actually have equity in the property you're living in.
Wrecking your credit score basically gate keeps you from a lot of stuff sadly.
I mean, I know you said /s but just saying fucking up your credit can screw you hard in the hyper capitalist hellscape we live in.
Technically if you took out a bunch of bad loans the government would be bailing out the banks. Like 2008. Let’s ride!
Cyber Monday is funny because it started with people buying things at work so it wouldn’t show up in their shared computers’ browser history, and now it’s like a whole made-up thing
Capitalism never misses an opportunity to exploit consumers.
Dodge v. Ford says so
who’s being exploited here?
I do know that while I was getting all the family Christmas shopping done with Black Friday I saw a few buy now pay later offers. Most prominent was Pay Pal. The offer was if you use their buy now pay later feature with zero interest, they give you 5% in PayPal cash (whatever that means). I saw it several times, so I figure people were jumping on that
Key detail missing here - what is the interest rate on avg? I buy a bunch of stuff at BNPL because with 0% interest over 1 year it's essentially at least 2-4% cheaper due to inflation.
There's also a lot of split into 4 payments as an option, which is helpful because credit cards freak out and cry fraud much more likely if a purchase is over 1-2k but are fine with under 500.
This is a big one, so long as the payments are on time most BNPL actually end up saving you a small bit of money compared to buying it out right.
Even if a good credit card with good cash back and rewards. BNPL frequently ends up getting me a positive savings of 1-3%.
Of course we know the reason they can offer these deals is because people frequently don't pay back properly or on time. Thus subsidizing the service for the rest of us. It's not healthy or good overall.
But like with most things if you can take advantage of it and use it to your benefit, you should.
I think the bigger subsidy comes from the seller as they'd rather lose 3% and score a sale than not.
We are a sentient ponzi scheme.
2008 recession will look like child's play compared to our next global recession.
Just another once in a lifetime event.
Not sure if we are in a sim or not, but i'm tired of getting fucked.
Have you tries being rich?
How does buy now pay later compare to credit cards. Like everyone used to have those, have they given out less, or is that staying the same/more?
It is worse as they don't report when you are paying the loan unlike credit card. They only report that you paid it off. So it just messes with your credit score.
BNPL generally has far less consumer protection than CCs. It's also vastly easier to access BNPL services as they're typically inserted into the payment process online, and don't do a very good job of informing consumers of things like repayment terms and interest charges.
There's definitely a case to be made that they deliberately target those who are less financially aware who are most vulnerable to predatory lenders pushing them into unmanageable debt.
The only BNPL service I ever use is PayPal. The math shows no interest and it will literally take out 1\4 of the total cost over a two month period which works great for me as I'm paid no weekly. Any other BNPL service is stupid because of the extra credit cost your paying on top of your carts price.
So much for that black Friday boycott.
Did nobody think that the “consumer” is capitalism way of speaking about humans?
I’m not a consumer, I’m a free man!
Funnily enough, there is a case as to why the word consumer so often pops up, especially in capitalist context. The first documented case of consumer was in the Middle Ages, in a French dictionary. It derives its meaning from Consumare, Latin for "use" but in a destructive manner. For example, you'd consume a candle or an apple because you'll use them and then they're gone, they're broken/destroyed. Being a consumer back then was a bad thing because people were so ridiculously poor and naturally could not waste. Now contrast that with the same French dictionary which defines customer as a person who routinely buys from the same merchant.
There's a reason why this is being used so prevalently today. Customer implies agency, a process of thinking and making a choice, while a consumer just consumes. Let me give an example. "We need to check how the consumers will receive it." it implies zero agency on the "consumers" part. Like feeding a toddler. But if I just say "We need to check how the customers will receive it", it again implies agency that we have to do well to satisfy the needs of the customer and not just try feeding a toddler by using dirty tricks.
So you're saying the point of using "consumer" over "customer" is to dehumanize people so businesses don't feel bad bilking them. Sounds right
The new Bath and Body Works CEO has implemented calling their customers "consumers" now instead. In things that come down from corporate, customer has been replaced with consumer. It's extremely off putting.
The point of the word is to give more context, so it's clearer what's being described. Same with the word user, you could say "Steam has 40m humans", or you could say users.
Our current fiat currency is all fake. Based on farts and promises.
The users of buy now pay later probably discovered that loophole in our society, that they are just using someone else's fake money to buy stuff.
They are onto something enlightened
No. Their business model is literally currently failing.
People can't afford to pay back. That is why they couldn't afford saving for it. So the service provider will sit on bad debt until no one wants to leant them money anymore and they are bankrupt.
People shouldn't pay back. Its fake money after all, it has no real value, just made up debt value and promises and shit.
It's not gold or silver
tell that to the collection agency at 4am.
Just ignore them. There's no jail for people who owe money.
And they are just companies. They won't extort you like the loan criminals in south america
Honestly, I am kinda tempted to say "To hell with fiscal responsibility!", and just live like someone with a decent income. That said, I will do the supposedly responsible thing and just keep foreign currency or buy gold. Because I am expecting this scenario to come for the American dollar:
Is this the right tactic to take? Who knows... 🤷♂️
That's why I sold all my dollars to my local currency one year ago. I am not trusting that currench
When I was younger and was just freshly moved out, I used BNPL 0% interest a lot (iirc it was Newegg, was like 15 years ago). It was kind of necessary to get a computer and I had just got an RA contract that paid stipends monthly, guaranteed for 5 years.
If you already have money and can get 0% interest, you can reinvest that cash as long as you can guarantee a payoff (set reminders!). You can put that $2,000 in a CD for that exact amount of time, too, and earn yourself back 3%-4%. That said, they might have caught onto my grift cause they usually offer 5% back OR 0% interest, lol.
So last year there was 40 million less in consumer debt generated over the shopping days? Am I mathing that right?
Just for 'buy now pay later', but yes
I wonder what would happen if everyone suddenly stopped being in debt. Really wish people would just stop feeding the beast.
I need a house though, most people don't have 250k sat around. Of course in a major city multiply that by several times.
One doesn’t always need to buy a home, but I don’t know your circumstances. Houses should be as affordable as cars, but I can’t even afford to pay on a 250K loan.
A car weighs 2000-4000lbs and can be produced in a mostly automated factory
A reasonable sized house still weighs 50-100k lbs that’s a lot more material and you have the land it is built on. It then takes multiple people days to build.
Houses being as affordable as cars is a pipe dream
I would build a cabin in the woods if it was legal to live like that. In the UK, it pretty much isn't. You can have the cabin, but you can't live in it.
Not from the UK but why can’t you live in a cabin?
If you buy some woodland it won't have planning permission for a permanent welling on it. Applying will almost certainly get rejected. You will only have permission to temporarily visit your land rather than live on it.
If it does have permission it will cost pretty much as much as a house. If there was a cheap way to have housing, even if it was just living in a tent, more people would be doing it. I suspect hatred of gypsies plays a part in it too.
So woodland that can’t have a permanent dwelling is affordable but woodland that can is cheap?
Like that would make sense if the construction of the building was different but if it’s simply just how often you can spend time on your own land that’s ridiculous
Yeah, it is a pipe dream. I’m just sick of the unaffordability.
I need shelter. It is illegal for me to live in a cabin in the woods and any way to do it legally is almost certain to be rejected - I looked, extensively.
So this just leaves renting or buying a house as the only legal options I have left. Maybe a boat, but locations for that are more limited and things can be expensive. Of the two choices, buying is way cheaper long term than renting and even pretty quickly short term depending on the markets.
Remember, rent goes up every year. Your mortgage value remains as it was when you got it. A 250k loan isn't going to be so much after a sum inflation rate of 50-100% several years down the road. Or about a week if Reform get in.
Hey, you made the choice that was best for you. There are pros and cons for each, and right now my only option is to rent. I am extremely fortunate to have a very below market rate and will take advantage of this time to save all I can.
The main thing is rents go up over time. I will be paying around this same amount for decades but if renting the cost of rent would double or more in that time. My mortgage will always be for the price of a house in 2023, while rents ever go up based on the house price in the current year.
I mean, even if it was 1 in 10 people that would still be like 30 bucks each. Most of those buy now pay later plans are interest free anyway.
They have late fees and can have incredibly high interest if you pay late.
1 in 10 for $30 includes every single man, woman, and child in the United States. In reality there is a much smaller group spending much more money and developing a revolving door of debt where they are chronically in debt for non essential purchases and as soon as one of those payments goes late they will be slapped with a bunch of late fees and interest that will make them miss other payments and get even more late fees and interest until they end up underwater
Klarna got 2.8B in revenue last year and they did it with those “interest free” loans
IIRC, most of the money they make is fees on the stores.
And they still lost almost 100 million that quarter
The banks and shareholders are delighted.
Less spending on credit cards to at least partially balance that or just full tilt debt spirals?
Raw dollar value means nothing if it's not tariff and inflation adjusted. Report total pieces as well.
It's about one billion pieces of dollars. I'm let someone else handle the rest.
What's the difference between this and credit card debt?
The time scale is the other big difference. A credit card is intended to be paid off at the end of the month and gives you much better fraud protection than a debit card
Products like klarna instead have you pay off a tv over months and offer you no real benefit besides racking up debt
Buying on a credit card doesn't incur interest fees until a month after the purchase so you can pay it off right away.
This is guaranteed to incur fees right out of the gate and cannot be paid back faster than they want.