New payment option for independent retailers launched

Retail management software Vend and retail payments platform Afterpay have announced a joint solution for independent retailers that will enable SMEs to offer the alternative payment option in-store, opening up an entirely new revenue channel.

Afterpay’s buy now, pay later solution is used by over 14,000 retail merchants Australia-wide, across a number of large-scale bricks-and-mortar stores, as well as online retailers of various sizes. Afterpay has processed payments for over 1.8 million customers. Until now, a solution was unavailable for independent and smaller retailers to offer the Afterpay payment option within their physical stores. This has put them at a disadvantage when competing with big-box retailers for customer share.

Afterpay has been integrated with Vend’s point-of-sale (POS) software, which has been highly popular with SME retailers. Businesses using Vend can now easily set-up and offer Afterpay to their customers in-store, allowing independent retailers to truly compete with larger stores and help SMEs increase sales and repeat customers.

Dave Scheine, Country Manager for Australia & New Zealand at Vend, said, “At Vend, we want to level the playing field for independent retailers, and give them access to the same tools the big stores have. That’s been our mission from day one. We’re really pleased to be bringing Afterpay’s exciting new payments option to our bricks-and-mortar retailers. This is a great step forward in helping retailers create a modern, attractive shopping experience for their customers.”

Fabio de Carvalho, Director of Sales at Afterpay, said, “We’re incredibly excited and pleased that we can now offer thousands of small businesses the ability use Afterpay in-store. Vend’s intuitive, sophisticated software is the perfect platform to take Afterpay out to Australia’s independent retailers. Retail merchants can now benefit from the boost in sales that many are already experiencing with Afterpay online.”

Designer Virginia Martin at independent retailer búl was one of the initial customers to pilot the new integration with Vend. “We’ve been using Afterpay through our online store for a while and are really excited we can now make it available to our in-store customers too. We know it’s going to make a big difference to our in-store sales, and the unique and effortless experience we aim to offer our customers,” Ms Martin said. “That’s why we put our hand up to trial the new Vend integration, and we’ll be rolling it out across all of our seven stores as soon as we can.”

Afterpay allows customers to buy in-store instantly, putting down a quarter of the cost and paying over four equal fortnightly instalments – helping customers manage their monthly budgets. It also offers the benefits of a layby service with an immediate take-home option.

Afterpay is now available to all Australian retailers using Vend.