Abercrombie & Fitch cashes in on Venmo for mobile payments

Brief:

Abercrombie & Fitch added Venmo as a new payment option for shoppers on its namesake and Hollister apps for iOS and Android, the company announced on Tuesday. Those who use the retailer's apps can select the payment service at checkout. Abercrombie said it is the first specialty retailer to offer the ability to purchase products directly through a Venmo account.
The company said its mobile apps are the fastest-growing digital sales channel among its brands, as app customers visit the brands twice as often as its average web customers.
Meanwhile, PayPal-owned Venmo processed more than $46 billion dollars of payments in the 12 months through June 30, according to Bloomberg.

Insight:

Abercrombie appears to be smartly integrating mobile payment functionalities to its apps. Nearly three quarters of Venmo's user base is below the age of 35, with it heavily skewing toward millennials and Gen Z, Verto Analytics found. This closely aligns with Abercrombie's core customer segment, pointing to the potential success of appealing to this group's habits and integrating convenient mobile payment tech.

Abercrombie is among the retailers that have added a Venmo payment option since the app began offering its service to merchants last year. Uber last month started accepting the payments on its ride-hailing app and food delivery service, Uber Eats, becoming the largest retailer to adopt the platform to date. More than 2 million merchants accept Venmo, which has been popular among young adults and teens who are more likely to shop at Abercrombie and who prefer quicker online payments.

Peer-to-peer payments (P2P) payments have grown increasingly popular in the U.S. as services like Square, Apple Pay Cash and Google Pay add the feature and banks add Zelle to their mobile apps. About half (49%) of millennials say they use P2P payments once a week, compared with 39% of Gen X and 32% of baby boomers, a Zelle study found. More than 75% of millennials have used online or mobile P2P payments, compared with 69% of Gen X and 51% of boomers, per the study.