BNPL purchases account for a small number of total sales, just 2% to 3%, Johnson told Digital Commerce 360. He said there’s been a “slight uptick” recently, though they’re still a small part of the business overall. Overstock uses Swedish payment service Klarna to facilitate those sales.

Customers who do choose to use BNPL services are mostly buying less expensive items from Overstock’s catalog.

Average products purchased with Klarna range between $10 and $400, he said. This is a wide range that encompasses Overstock’s average order value of $215 in the fourth quarter of 2022, and notably includes items priced far lower than that AOV. For example, a small throw pillow priced at $25.19 can be purchased through four payments of $6.30 over six weeks.

Overstock is an example of a larger ecommerce trend. More consumers turned to BNPL services in 2022 than in previous years, according to Adobe’s data. Online purchases made with BNPL were up 14% in 2022 over 2021, and revenue from BNPL purchases grew 27% year over year. Adobe did not share the total portion of online orders that use BNPL.

BNPL trends are shifting in 2023 so far, according to early data. In January and February 2023, BNPL use increased 10% year over year, while revenue decreased 19% over the same period. This shows that shoppers are using payment plans to fund lower-priced purchases, like Overstock reported.

Furniture sales and groceries were the two categories where consumers used BNPL more so far in 2023 than in 2022, Adobe found. BNPL furniture purchases were up 38% in the first two months of the year.

“The strong online growth of home furnishing purchasing is expected to bolster buy-now-pay-later adoption, given the higher ticket prices in this category,” Adobe Digital Insights lead analyst Vivek Pandya said in a press release.