RELATED CONTENT




NEW YORK—The COVID-19 stay-at-home and work-from-home policies and the impact of the pandemic on many people’s financial health and spending habits prompted many consumers to shop more online or at least become more familiar with many online shopping options and technologies. Among these, are Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solutions during the online checkout process to buy what they want and split their purchase over time.





The results are higher average order values and increasing incremental revenue for online retailers. This new way to pay is becoming more widely used and brick-and-mortar retailers are starting to leverage this now. According to tracking information from such monitors as Afterpay and PYMTS, over a third of U.S. consumers have used a BNPL service. And their primary reason for doing to is to avoid paying interest on credit.

Sunbit (https://sunbit.com/merchant-benefits/eyewear/) is making BNPL inroads with multiple unit optical retail groups and independent ECPs. Sunbit can approve consumers for their service with a swift and simple check of a driver’s license or ID, and consumers can choose payment options from three, six or 12-month payment plans. It’s a 30-second application process and 90 percent of people are approved. Consumers can view their plan status, pay off bills early and control the pace of their payments.

Idan Tzror, Sunbit’s VP of retail operations, said, “Sunbit is excited about working with local service providers that fulfill the needs of their communities. Over the past four years we’ve seen success working with businesses in other sectors and we recognized a need in optical practices. By the end of 2020, the BNPL service provided by Sunbit, which started working with optical businesses in August 2019, will be available in 5,700 locations, with 250 of those being in the optical space, Tzror said.

Lisa Rollins, owner of Optical Matters (https://www.opticalmatters.com/) based in Littleton, Colo., a single location practice, said, “I’m a big fan. During the shutdown in the spring, we were scheduling a bunch of webinars to find new ways of adding to our business, trying to find new things. Sunbit came along as an invite about the Buy Now Pay Later option.

“It was a new way to give patients the options to buy the things they actually need without having to cut back on the vision care features they’d benefit from, such as anti-glare or high index choices. Many Millennials don’t like to use a credit card to pay for things, and Sunbit is a soft credit pull versus a read credit card. And patients in their 60s and 70s also are looking for ways this year to manage and stretch their payment dollars.”





Just last month VM reported that Sunbit announced a full API integration with LensQuote (https://lensquote.net/), a leading solution for driving in-office contact lens sales. The goal is for LensQuote, now with Sunbit’s added benefits, to help convert more annual contact lens supplies and customers into daily lens wearers quickly, while increasing revenues per fitting.

The integration between LensQuote, an in-office SaaS tool and Sunbit eliminates the need for manual calculations, allowing optical staff to present pricing at checkout. Optical retailers will be able to offer a “Pay As Low As” price, which shows consumers the average monthly payment for the cost of their annual supply of contact lenses if they choose to split their payment using Sunbit.