New personalized Prequalification helps prevent affordability surprises at checkout

Abandoned carts often occur when shoppers lose sight of whether they can afford an online purchase, causing an unpleasant surprise for them at checkout. But what if we took that surprise away?

That’s one aim of Affirm’s new personalized Prequalification. Transparency underpins how we build products at Affirm. With this release, we’re excited to bring new transparency to shoppers by now sharing the terms of financing with them earlier in their journeys.

The journey starts with our usual Prequalification process, in which customers share five quick pieces of information to learn about how much credit they’re eligible for before they begin shopping.

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From here, eligible customers enjoy our new experience. The shopper’s total prequalified available credit continues to headline the module, but the experience has been otherwise rebuilt with new visual insights and tools:

New personalized Prequalification helps prevent affordability surprises at checkout - Image 1

Visualization of a shopper’s remaining prequalified credit
Prequalified loan terms, with drill-down display into repayment details (with a visual emphasis for 0% APR offers)
Expiration countdown
Easy access to these details for the 7-day life of the prequalification

One of my favorite pieces is the interactive payment “calculator,” enabling buyers to understand loan terms across different items they're considering.

Finally, as customers continue shopping, their experiences across your site are then personalized with messaging that automatically updates the monthly payments based on their prequalified amounts. See the graphic below for a visual example of the full sequence:

Four-screen animated gif of Prequalification flow

Several merchants have seen that this type of early assurance to onsite buyers helps increase average order values (AOVs). For an example, read how ProAudioStar saw a 33% AOV lift after implementing our Prequalification feature.

Recent tests of the upgrade revealed promising results with consumer groups. Here are a few of the comments we received about the new feature:

“You’re not hiding anything, which I think is wonderful. There are no surprises on my end.”
“It’s got great information. It’s very clean. It’s easy to navigate.”

With our personalized Prequalification experience, you can be sure shoppers won’t discover an affordability surprise at checkout. The resulting drop in abandoned carts on your site—along with potential AOV lift—may bring a nice surprise for you instead.

Payment options through Affirm are provided by these lending partners: affirm.com/lenders. Your rate will be 0–36% APR based on credit, and is subject to an eligibility check. Affirm Pay in 4 payment option is 0% APR. Options depend on your purchase amount, may vary by merchant, and may not be available in all states. A down payment may be required. For example, a $800 purchase could be split into 12 monthly payments of $72.21 at 15% APR, or 4 interest-free payments of $200 every 2 weeks. The Affirm Money Account is held with Cross River Bank (CRB), Member FDIC. Affirm is not an FDIC-insured bank. FDIC insurance covers accounts held with CRB in the event of a CRB failure. California residents: Affirm Loan Services, LLC is licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Loans are made or arranged pursuant to California Financing Law license 60DBO-111681. The Affirm Card is a Visa® debit card issued by Evolve Bank & Trust, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. The Affirm Card is not available to residents of U.S. territories. The one-time-use Affirm virtual card is issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, or Celtic Bank, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Affirm, Inc., NMLS ID 1883087. Affirm Loan Services, LLC, NMLS ID 1479506. For licenses and disclosures, see affirm.com/licenses.