Shopping online? When drawbacks of ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ plans outweigh the perks

Shopping online? When drawbacks of ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ plans outweigh the perks

Dubai: ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) schemes can definitely offer speed and convenience when you’re shopping online, but more retail experts are warning that by not considering the prospect of possibly missing payments, you’re potentially disregarding more costly repercussions. BNPL lets consumers pay for their online purchases in a handful of interest-free instalments over a period of a few weeks or a few months, and approval is generally quick and easy because it happens without a glitch within an online retailer’s checkout page; but what then are the risks? “Nearly 400 million shoppers use BNPL deals worldwide, but surveys reveal over 50 per cent of them do not realise they are taking on debt when doing so or did not think of these deals as a form of credit,” said Dr Khalid Essaye, an Abu Dhabi-based researcher specialising in consumer spending. “Instead, most survey respondents describe BNPL as a ‘money management tool’, which is reason to take caution as it means they could unwittingly be exposing themselves to a range of potential problems if they failed to pay back on time, such as late fees, black marks on their credit report.” Let’s say you are about to confirm the purchase