Young People Are Getting Poorer And Poorer. H&M And A&F Are Promoting Installment Payments.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE:ANF), a young apparel brand group, announced its cooperation with the Swedish payment provider Klarna Bank AB to provide three and four installment services to three major brands Abercrombie & Fitch, Abercrombie kids and British and American consumers respectively.

Klarna has now provided Pay Later's after payment service for German customers of Abercrombie & Fitch Co., and consumers can pay 14 days after placing the order.

The above cooperation is of great significance to traditional retailers. Generally, online retailers can cooperate with consumer loan products to enable consumers to enjoy one-stop financial and consumer services. In particular, the highest penetration of electricity providers in the Chinese market, the first big electricity supplier Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA) Alibaba associated company ant Kim suit (Alipay) and the two largest electricity supplier JD.com Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) Jingdong has launched the corresponding ant flower chant, ant borrow, and Jingdong white ious consumer loan financial services.

Klarna Michael Rouse, chief business officer, said that cooperation with global retailers is based on a shared vision, which is the future of the retail industry, including high touch shopping and payment experience. This requires not only the participation and coverage, but also the loyalty of customers.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. chief information officer Matt Weger believes that the goal of cooperation is to provide attractive, seamless brand experience, from product discovery to payment and fulfillment. Cooperation with Klarna has proved to be successful in the German market. The company regards customers as all centers and endeavours to provide various options to meet their growing needs.

Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Klarna, which was born in 2005, won the investment of its Hennes Hennes Mauritz AB (HMb.ST) Haines Maurice group (hereinafter referred to as H&M group) in October last year.

H&M invested 185 million Swedish kronor, or about $20 million, to Klarna. Klarna, in turn, helped H&M improve and integrate digital and physical shop payment services, creating an excellent end-to-end customer experience across all channels of H&M.

At the end of June, H&M and Klarna announced that, on the basis of cooperation in the payment area, the two sides will launch pre paid, post payment and installment services this fall. The service starts from the Swiss market in August, followed by the British market, and the second largest American market will also be launched later.

H&M said that the common goal of both sides is to further integrate H&M's digital and physical stores, so that customers can get seamless, personalized and charming shopping experience wherever they are, no matter when and how they shop.

In last year's partnership agreement, H&M group revealed that such services could also enter the Asian market.

According to H&M, this partnership covers several channels of H&M, including online and physical stores, including Klarna's leading "after purchase," full product, and simplified post purchase and return experience. This collaboration will be managed through the next generation of H&M apps and H&M loyalty programs. The overall goal is to create an end-to-end, more inspiring and sophisticated shopping experience for fashion lovers.

However, the above cooperation is only open to H&M members.

The popularity of Klarna, in addition to the transformation of the retail business channel, is more important because the millennial generation of the whole world is poorer and consumptive at the same age.

The report released by the Fed last year reveals that the family income of the X generation and the baby boomers is 11% and 14% higher than that of the millennial generation, considering age and working conditions. The average savings of the millennial generation in the United States are only 2430 dollars, and more and more millennials have no savings at all. A report by Country Financial, a US financial institution, shows that most of the 21-37 year old American adults receive financial assistance from their parents or guardians.

Alissa Quart's new book "Squeezed: Why Our Families Can" t Afford America believes that the reason why the "millennial generation" is "poor" is that wage increases can not keep up with daily expenses. The higher education and the medical pension plan have absorbed the huge consumption power of the millennials in advance.

Klarna currently has 13 brands including Nike, Adidas, SEPHORA, ASOS, Nike, Sonos, IKEA, H&M and JD Sports, and is active in 14 countries in Europe. Author: He Wei