Checklist: Best practices for boosting online sales with Affirm

After implementing Affirm’s pay-over-time options, many retailers have seen improvements in their sales metrics, such as increases in average order volume, conversions, repeat customers, and overall site traffic.

We’ve collected a number of their success stories in recent years, and several best practices have emerged from their experiences with Affirm. Check out the summary below to help you make the most of our transparent, flexible installment loan options.

Offer a 0% APR promotion. Seeking to increase its U.S. travel sales, Alternative Airlines implemented a 0% APR promotion with Affirm during the holiday season. The offer, which allowed customers to book flights and pay over time, helped produce a 42 percent increase in average order value (AOV). In addition, Affirm’s recent research report shows that 0% APR financing was the most popular option for consumers with credit scores above 715.

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Layer multiple deals on one order. Following its philosophy to “make it easy for your customer to do business with you,” GhostBed was able to stack multiple deals for a single order—for example, a discount and zero-percent interest Affirm loan.

Try a frictionless three-payment plan for orders under $250. Catering to young, budget-conscious couples, Manly Bands implemented AffirmGo to enable couples to pay for their rings over time with three, interest-free payments. In the process, Manly Bands saw a 17 percent rise in conversions.

Advertise Affirm to your customers. Paul Evans, seller of high-quality men’s shoes and accessories, started promoting Affirm on pre-checkout pages during the sales process. The retailer also included Affirm’s pay-over-time messaging in many other advertisements including social media, emails, abandoned cart messages, and more. Their results included a 140 percent increase in site traffic.

Use the Multiple Finance Program (MFP) to control inventory, reach buyer segments. This feature allows you to create different financing programs to target specific segments of your customers to increase conversion. Offer specific programs by cart size, product or customer characteristics, and more. Giant Bikes used Affirm’s MFP to hand-select which bikes would be available for financing and reported “a very nice bump in sales.”

Use Affirm’s “as low as” messaging in social media targeting. Placing Facebook ads that featured Affirm’s “as low as” repayment message helped Bob’s Watches find new customers offsite. The tactic also contributed to a 22 percent lift in new visitors to the site.

Place Affirm up-funnel in the customer’s consideration process. Tradesy promoted Affirm on all product pages, which helped increase repeat purchasing by 88 percent among customers who bought with Affirm.

Let customers prequalify before they shop. Knowing how much a buyer can borrow with Affirm takes the uncertainty away from the shopping process. It can also lead to higher order values, as ProAudioStar and GhostBed discovered. In fact, ProAudioStar saw a 33 percent lift in AOV after introducing the prequalification feature.

Leverage Affirm’s network. Let new customers discover you in the Offers section of our mobile app. Our large network of customers and merchants is an ecosystem rich with cross-selling and repeat purchase activity, as 59 percent of repeat Affirm customers buy from a different Affirm-affiliated retailer.

How many of these best practices have you tried? Our Client Success team is always eager to hear your feedback and help you optimize the best experiences with Affirm. You can always contact your Client Success Manager or email merchanthelp@affirm.com for assistance.

Ready to try the buy now, pay later solution that delivers?