Leading Canadian Retailer Altitude Sports To Offer Sezzle’s ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Option At Checkout

Sezzle Inc. (ASX:SZL) (Sezzle or Company) // Sezzle, the leading North American payments platform, is announcing that it has been selected as the official installment payments platform for Canadian sports retailer Altitude Sports. Sezzle’s solution was chosen following a 60-day head-to-head trial period in which Sezzle and another installment payments company were evaluated based on a series of parameters, including ease of integration, user experience and financial performance. In setting up the pilot program, Altitude Sports wanted to both test the overall impact of adding the BNPL option to the checkout experience as well as identify the best long-term BNPL partner.

The Altitude Sports digital team was impressed with the immediate impact that the BNPL feature had on driving sales and pushing up average basket sizes, and identified Sezzle as the best platform for enabling that feature. Ultimately, Sezzle won the Altitude Sports contract based on the established performance parameters. Executives at the retailer also highlighted Sezzle’s focus on young consumers, its deep understanding of the Canadian retail environment, and the company’s purpose-driven corporate mission as being other key drivers that influenced their decision.

“We are excited to partner with such an influential Canadian retailer like Altitude Sports,” said Patrick Chan, the Sezzle’s General Manager for Canada. “Since Sezzle launched in Canada in mid-2019, we have been growing quickly, partnering with many of Canada’s premier online retailers. It’s so rewarding to see that many of the fastest growing companies in Canada are choosing Sezzle as its preferred BNPL solution.”

“Today’s announcement adds a powerful and influential Canadian brand to the Sezzle family, and we look forward to helping Altitude Sports expand their business now that they can offer their customers a new, more manageable way to pay — a key differentiator in today’s climate of economic uncertainty,” added Chan.

Altitude Sports is known across the Canadian retail landscape as an organization with its finger on the pulse of the latest consumer trends, and it was this forward-thinking that initially inspired the company to set up a competitive process in search of the ideal ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ solution.

“In finding an installment payments partner, Altitude Sports set a very high bar and Sezzle stepped up to the challenge,” observed Altitude Sports’ Co-CEO Alexandre Guimond. “We were pleased with Sezzle’s technology and people. Sezzle is a real innovator and we are confident that this is the beginning of a long-term, fruitful relationship.”

“Plain and simple our goal is to be the leading BNPL provider in Canada,” said Sezzle President and co-founder Paul Paradis who oversees the company’s international businesses. “We are pleased with the results of our successful pilot program with Altitude Sports and look forward to continuing to create value for our partner in the form of fewer abandoned shopping carts, increased average order size and ultimately, increased sales. We know we will deliver.”

Earlier in July of this year, Sezzle, which is a publicly traded company on the Australian ASX, completed a USD $60 million capital raise that includes plans for doubling down on its efforts in the Canadian market. A portion of the funds from this latest raise will be directed towards hiring additional staff for Sezzle’s Canadian headquarters in Toronto, bolstering its dedicated Canada sales and customer success operations, augmenting the Canada merchant acquisition team, and bolstering the company’s national marketing efforts.

The consulting firm McKinsey & Co has estimated the burgeoning “Buy Now, Pay Later” space is valued at USD$1.9 Trillion ($2.6 Trillion CAD), and industry researchers have predicted that 95 percent of all direct-to-consumer retailers will be offering some form of installment-based payment solution for both online and in-store checkout by 2023. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the industry as a whole has benefitted as shutdowns have driven customers to migrate to online shopping. By and large Sezzle has seen that these same global trends tilting towards BNPL are occurring in Canada as well.

In these tough economic times, Sezzle has made a concerted effort to support Canadian-based retailers. To this end, Sezzle recently unveiled the country’s most complete Canada Store Directory where consumers can find merchants offering Sezzle’s BNPL solutions featuring solely Canadian retailers.