Smeetz and Klarna team up to offer BNPL for venues

Klarna at checkout: How City Surf Park added BNPL to its booking flow

Klarna's buy now, pay later (BNPL) feature is available to all venues using the Smeetz platform. Klarna specialises in BNPL for venues and other businesses. Basically, the service lets customers pay for purchases, tickets, and memberships over time.

City Surf Park in Paris is the first venue operating the Smeetz unified commerce platform to actively promote Klarna's BNPL on their homepage. The indoor surf venue's customers see "buy now, pay later" as one of the options at checkout.

City Surf Park uses BNPL to help unlock higher-value purchases, such as multi-visit packages and group bookings. Guests might not consider these higher-priced purchases if they had to pay up front.

Here is an in-depth look at the value BNPL provides and how Klarna works within the Smeetz platform to seamlessly add buy now, pay later to the surf park ticketing and other leisure and entertainment venues.

The benefits of BNPL for venues

What are the advantages of BNPL for leisure attraction checkout systems? Why did we partner with Klarna to add BNPL to our booking engine? Venue managers shouldn't think of buy now, pay later as just another ticketing payment option. It can bring new benefits to leisure venues:

• Removes friction for large purchases: BNPL lets customers spread payments out over time, so they can opt for group tickets, VIP experiences, or multi-visit packages without the hesitation caused by larger upfront payments.
• Makes value more accessible for customers: Customers who might delay or skip higher-value options like multi-visit packages can spread payments out over time in a way that works for them.
• More conversions: Customers who would otherwise abandon purchases when they see the final cost can use the BNPL option to complete their purchases. The extra option should help improve conversions.
• Attracts people who don't have credit cards: Some guests may not wish to use credit cards, while others, especially younger people, may not have one. They can still use BNPL to make payments over time.

With more people able to make larger purchases, the venue's average value per booking should rise with the addition of BNPL. City Surf Park is doing exactly this, promoting BNPL as an option for purchasing its multi-session surf packages.

How BNPL from Smeetz and Klarna works for venues

No amusement park or leisure venue would turn down an increase in bookings. However, they might think there is a catch to buy now, pay later, such as having to wait for the full payment or having to chase down late payments.

While these problems may come up with some payment processors or omnichannel payment operations, they don't arise with Smeetz and Klarna.

First of all, Smeetz users don't have to change their omnichannel payment system to add BNPL. Smeetz has integrated Klarna into its checkout layer. Guests can simply select the buy now, pay later option and check out seamlessly, just like they can with any other payment option.

Venue managers don't have to wait to get the revenue from the purchase. Once the purchase is complete, the venue gets the full amount from Klarna. Klarna then manages the instalment payments independently.

In other words, with Klarna ticketing, Smeetz users do not have to wait for instalment payments or deal with late payments. From the venue's perspective, the transaction is complete, and the revenue is in their account as soon as the guests complete the booking.

Who should offer BNPL at checkout?

Any venue can offer BNPL. However, it works best for places with higher-ticket options.

For instance, City Surf Park has intensive surf packs that cover 10, 20, 40, or 80 sessions. These effectively serve as 12 to 24-month subscriptions to the facility. This is a prime example of the type of high-ticket item that venues can promote using BNPL.

Other targets for BNPL promotions might include:

• Premium experiences like VIP packages, luxury boxes or suites, all-inclusive services, full-venue rental for a party or corporate event, or multi-day tickets for a festival or special event.
• Memberships or season pass payments for a theme park, museum, or family entertainment centre. This could also include family memberships, corporate memberships, or multi-visit passes like the one offered by City Surf Park.
• Group bookings for businesses, schools, organisations, or private parties for weddings, birthdays, or stag parties.
• Experience bundles with admission to the venue, F&B services, equipment rentals, and/or merchandise credits.
• High-demand items like tickets to anticipated music festivals, sporting events, or admission to FECs during busy holidays.

These tickets and packages are expensive enough that guests would consider BNPL ticketing payment options, but desirable enough that they'd consider it worthwhile to pay over time.

Where can customers find the BNPL option?

Since Smeetz is a unified commerce platform, guests can access the BNPL option wherever they purchase their tickets. This could be at a point-of-sale kiosk or ticket counter at the venue. It could also be online via a website or mobile device.

It is important to actively market BNPL as an option for higher-ticket items. Smeetz makes this easy. Our Atlas AI tool can walk guests through the ticketing process and automatically promote Klarna's BNPL option as a way to upsell or market higher-ticket experiences and packages.

The City Surf Park ticketing strategy has already set the precedent for this. This shows that BNPL is more than another option for leisure venue payments; it can also help promote packages or premium experiences. Omnichannel payments mean this option is available to guests no matter how they choose to purchase their tickets.

‍