1 in 5 UK consumers planning BNPL Christmas

One in five (22 per cent) UK consumers are planning to spread the cost of Christmas through ‘buy now, pay later’ services, according to a survey from BNPL provider Butter.

Food is the number one thing cash-strapped consumers are planning on buying now and paying later for, Butter found when polling nearly 5,000 consumers.

A small majority (54 per cent), said spreading the cost of Christmas shopping better allows them to manage their finances.

Just over a third (40 per cent) said using BNPL products would be to indulge during the festive season by increasing the quality or quantity of their purchases. Clothing was the second most likely purchase consumers would look to spread, with tech, home goods and entertainment also ranking high. 

“The older we get, the more we realise Christmas is about spending time with friends and family but for many, it can still be a very costly time of year Overstretching financially can leave us facing a very long January and so it’s hardly surprising that in this day and age, lots of us opt to spread the cost rather than absorb it all during the month of December,” said Timothy Davis, Co-Founder and CEO of Butter.  

Butter was founded in 2017 by Davis, Stefan Hobl and Nik Haukohl. It now counts 100,000 customers. It recently raised £15m of funding from BCI, part of the Blenheim Chalcot Group.