Have you noticed how customers keep asking about the payment options you offer? Let’s talk about installments, more specifically about periodic payment plans. 

Not all of us can afford to pay for something at once. For example, you currently own a store, selling gardening tools. Some of them are more expensive than others, such as lawnmowers, and you notice how many customers are interested in this product. Still, the majority of them keep skipping this product category because they haven’t seen any options for flexible payments. Now, if you’re willing to increase revenue and sell more of these products, you can make a deal with any local bank or financial institution. 

Once they approve this type of payment, there are ways to promote the products and services by partnering with various catalogue-specialized websites and get featured in their periodic online catalogues. These websites often create and publish weekly payback catalogues, which are really popular among shoppers nowadays. Millions of people seek to buy more products and pay in weekly or even monthly installments instead of all at once, so they often visit these sites and check out all the latest special offers. This is a great way to have your items promoted online and be seen by many potential customers.

Now, let’s talk about how having flexible payment options is a win-win situation for both your business and customers.

Why offering flexible payment options is beneficial to your business

All products come in different packages and are of various values. It’s the main reason why price tags may vary from $1 to $1,000,000. 

Is it possible to sell more expensive products continuously, and still increase both sales and customer satisfaction? Sure, one way to do it is to offer customers to pay via installments.

In case you’re wondering whether or not this method will benefit your business, don’t even hesitate. Yes, you will still make the big sales and create a steady income every week, rather than having to chase the customers with “deeper” pockets. Since banks take care of the financial part, all that’s left for you to do is keep promoting the products, offering easy periodic payments to attract new and retain old customers. 

How is payment flexibility beneficial to your customers?

By telling a business owner to ‘put themselves in their customer’s shoes’, they can see how a customer reacts to the prices and products. This way, it allows owners to change a few things in order to ease the whole shopping process. That is the case with payment flexibility. These changes will surely benefit the business by attracting a much wider audience. 

Let’s take buying a new car for example. The majority of us can’t afford to go to the car dealer and buy a brand new Porsche. However, the car dealer offers monthly installments so that more people can buy the latest Porsche Carrera. 

More customers mean more profits, as many industries have found out throughout the past few decades. Businesses have learned – by making payment options flexible, more customers will buy the products, and returning customers will create more opportunities for profit. 

Let’s talk about how it feels being a customer, i.e. the other side of the business.

Increase in customer satisfaction

If you were to buy a pricey tux for your best friend’s wedding, and you couldn’t afford it, you would probably feel disappointed. That’s exactly how customers feel when they browse the Internet for the products they need. However, when you find that a famous luxury brand offers tuxes with flexible payment options of up to 12 monthly installments, you’d probably feel relieved by the opportunity.

Basically, whenever customers come across companies offering products paid in weekly or monthly installments, they feel relieved. A certain need for specific products and the ease of payments is the main reason behind increased customer satisfaction.

So, you can now attend your best friend’s wedding, buy them a great gift, and still have enough money left to get through the month. Sounds easy, right? This is another example of how it feels to be satisfied as a customer. Having to pay for something during a longer period, instead of paying it all at once helps other customers feel the same way.

Increase customer loyalty and retention

Let’s say you’ve found the perfect clothing store for work. You’ll need to buy new pants, shirts, shoes, and accessories every couple of months. Worst case scenario, you need to shop for new clothes at least twice a year. You already pay the mortgages, car loans, and your kids’ college tuition fees. 

Still, after you pay all the bills, there’s not much left for new clothes. However, the local clothing store allows for buying their products in monthly installments. That way, you’ll still have some cash left and have new clothes at the same time. Most importantly, you won’t “feel” the money flowing away since they only take a portion of your remaining monthly budget. 

Brands awareness – word-of-mouth marketing

Now, let’s get back to attracting and retaining customers. What’s essential here is the increase in the popularity of your business by providing flexible payment options. Your customers will have an extra reason to be satisfied, as well as spread the word about your products. All of a sudden, you will most likely see an increase in customers, most of them agreeing to pay in monthly installments.

From anyone’s perspective – it’s a fair trade. There are more sales and stable periodic income for businesses, and less cash to be spent all at once for customers. The process sounds about right from anyone’s perspective. Any real-life example of companies offering periodic subscriptions or installments will prove just why they’ve grown so fast, in such a short time.

Conclusion

So, what’s at stake here? Allowing people to purchase products and services while their monthly budget remains intact is, above all, an integral part of marketing. The more payment options and payment flexibility, the more customers you will acquire and retain. It’s a simple, yet proven formula, applicable to most businesses, both small and medium-sized. In short, it’s a must for any company, offering different payment forms and using different payment providers.