When you go to buy a pair of 399-dollar Airpods from the Apple store, Apple gives you a choice, pay the $399 in full or pay it off in monthly installments of $16.62 over two years through your Apple Card. This completely changes the conversation. Apple puts a choice to the buyer. And that choice isn’t whether to buy or not. It’s how to pay.

Salesmen call this the assumptive close and it’s very powerful. Apple eliminates the “if” and only leaves you with the how. If Apple just gave you a single option of paying $399 for the Airpods, you will sit there asking yourself whether spending $399 on Airpods is a wise idea.

But by presenting you with a choice between paying $399 upfront or $16.62 in monthly installments, Apple has eliminated the purchasing decision entirely. The choice is between paying $399 upfront or $16.62 in monthly installments. Either way, Apple is getting the sale.

BNPL providers can do the same for you

Take a page from Apple’s book and do the same for your store. And unlike Apple which has to consider the risk of missed payments because they’re probably doing the financing themselves, you don’t have to.

Buy Now Pay Later services like Klarna and Afterpay pay you, the merchant, upfront and in full then square up with the customer later. You do not have to worry about missed installments. That’s Afterpay’s and Klarna’s problem.

A BNPL option can do for your store what it does for Apple. Many BNPL providers offer eight installments over two months. What would be an unthinkable 400-dollar expenditure is turned into eight monthly installments of $50, effectively turning it into an impulse purchase.

With the assumptive close in play, your customers’ options are changed from or buying or not buying to just choosing how they want to pay. A BNPL option can go a long way in closing that sale as the huge dollar amount is broken down into less intimidating chunks.