Introduction

Affordability is not a new concept. In fact, it has been ingrained into consumers’ minds ever since they could “spend.” Consider, for example, the purchase of a car. The first thing a consumer does is look at their financial health and determine an upper cap for the price. In simpler terms, they are mulling over how much they can afford to spend on a car.

In much the same way, the concept of affordability applies to the case of Direct to Consumer (D2C) brands as well. To expand their consumer base and aid more buyers in purchasing expensive items, D2C brands now bolster their operations with modern payment technologies and mechanisms.

This is where Plural’s Affordability Suite comes into the picture. With its comprehensive payments ecosystem, Plural’s Affordability Suite helps D2C businesses boost their sales and improve conversions. Let’s see how.

What is Plural’s Affordability Suite?

Developed solely for the purpose of making your products and services more accessible and affordable to your consumers, Plural’s Affordability Suite consolidates a variety of payment methods into a single checkout. The most popular payment methods rampant today, like Buy Now Pay Later, EMIs, discounts, cashbacks, deals, and offers, are all available to your consumer on checkout with Plural’s Affordability Suite infrastructure.

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All the payment methods included in the Affordability Suite are targeted to provide customers with options to pay according to their convenience and capacity:

• EMIs: Whether with interest or no cost, EMIs break up the total cost into several instalments, making the purchase more affordable. This includes credit and debit card EMIs, and even cardless payments like Zest Money.
• Offers: Customers today are big on loyalty rewards and offers for using a financial service. This includes cashbacks, deals, discounts, and more.
• Pay Later: Services like Buy Now Pay Later and Save Now Pay Later are payment methods where customers can checkout quicker with the total cost distributed into short-term financed instalments. Such loans get approved quicker and are usually free of interest.

All of these payment methods and mechanisms are housed in the Affordability Suite, which can be easily integrated into your checkout systems.

How affordability boosts sales

Affordability is the primary driver of sales. Think of it this way: if an expensive item was made available to you through EMI as opposed to a full up-front payment, would you not consider buying it? Plural’s Affordability Suite leverages this consumer psyche to deliver payment options that encourage the “affordability” of items.

1. Higher customer spends

The primary way that affordability boosts sales is by increasing the average order value of your customers. Payment options like Buy Now Pay Later and EMIs allow customers to break up one large payment into several smaller instalments that they can afford to pay over a period of time. This helps consumers purchase items they otherwise would not have if these payment options were not available to them.

2. New customer acquisitions

Affordability suites allow users to select a payment method that suits their financial situation but still allows them to make bigger purchases. The costlier items that would otherwise attract only a specific demographic now become affordable for more people. This ultimately helps your business gain more customers over time. However, this requires a partnership with a reliable payments infrastructure partner — the Plural Affordability Suite can make it happen.

3. Reduction in marketing spends

Plural’s Affordability Suite allows your business to incorporate deals, discounts, rewards, and cashbacks right at checkout. You can experiment with a referral-based rewards system to get more sign-ons or new customers, effectively helping you save that much on your marketing spend. Furthermore, the robust architecture of the platform enables smooth checkout and secure transactions, creating a word-of-mouth marketing chain for your brand.

4. Competitive levelling with other brands

For D2C businesses, remaining competitive is a stark reality. Your business cannot afford to be static in its payment options in methods when the competitors have boarded the affordability bandwagon. Enabling more payment options, mechanisms and methods during checkout gives your business a levelled field to compete with your peers for gaining new customers and earning their loyalty in the process.

Plural Affordability: Use cases that boost conversions

Plural’s Affordability Suite has proven itself through several use cases that it has the capability to boost sales and conversions, regardless of the industry it is deployed in.

1. Travel, tourism, hospitality

A survey demonstrated that just over half of travellers put great emphasis on good deals when booking their travels. Businesses stand to gain a lot when they offer travellers attractive deals and discounts while booking tickets, stays, experiences, or even travel insurance. With Plural’s Affordability Suite, it is possible to attach these benefits at checkout in partnership with your associates to transfer the benefits to the end user.

2. eCommerce

It is known that mobile phones have penetrated a vast majority of demographics all across the globe. eCommerce stores can be easily accessed to make purchases. This puts a large mass of potential customers at the fingertips of any business. By introducing an Affordability Suite on their eCommerce channels, businesses can onboard more purchasers by making premium goods available to them at great deals. For example, a no-cost EMI option to purchase an iPhone would be appealing to a buyer from a Tier III city.

3. CDIT

Consumer Durables and IT have a large share of middle-class buyers, but some of these items can be costlier than others. For example, a 5.1 stereo system with tower speakers and cinematic setup is a consumer durable, but relatively more expensive. By updating the payment mechanisms for such items, your business can onboard more willing purchasers while earning their favour in return.

4. EdTech

The EdTech sector has experienced a recent boost hand-in-hand with the digital revolution. While it has made learning more accessible, quality learning products and resources still remain affordable only for the privileged class. By incorporating affordability measures with such courseware and resources, businesses can grow their customer base and make high-quality learning more accessible for everyone.

Wrapping up

D2C is a highly competitive niche. Every business in the same sector must constantly imbue value and great customer experience at each stage of the customer journey to remain in the run.

Plural’s Affordability Suite allows your D2C venture to pack value even for the BOFU traffic. This helps you remain at the top of your customers’ minds each time they need to purchase an item online. To understand the other ways that Plural Affordability Suite can transform the checkout experience of your business, write to us at pgsupport@pinelabs.com.

Plural by Pine Labs has received an in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a Payment Aggregator.