Adobe: Buy Now Pay Later payments rising amid uncertain economy
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In the United States, consumers are still spending mightily on e-commerce, but the ongoing uncertain state of the economy has caused many shoppers to use alternate methods of paying for their digital purchases.
That's the assessment from Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), which on Wednesday used its annual Adobe Summit gathering to release its latest data on the e-commerce market and the digital economy. Among Adobe's (ADBE) data are that so-called Buy Now Pay Later [BNPL] options, which allow consumers to delay purchases over multiple monthly payments, are growing in use among online shoppers.
According to Adobe (ADBE), the share of online purchases in 2022 made with BNPL options grew by 14% from 2021, with revenue from such purchases rising by 27% on a year-over-year basis. And in the first two months of this year, BNPL orders rose by 10% from the same period a year ago, but revenue from such purchases dropped by 19% during the same period in 2022. Adobe (ADBE) said that divergence suggests that consumers are using BNPL in order to ease the pain of emptying their wallets all at once.
Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe Digital Insights, said that while e-commerce on the whole has remained "resilient", consumers are feeling the pinch of a mixed-bag of economy on their daily necessities such as groceries, for which BNPL purchases increased by 40% on a year-over-year basis during January and February.
"The rise of Buy Now Pay Later usage for groceries tells us that consumers are likely making bigger purchases online to take advantage of special promotions and stock up on staples, thus managing living expenses in more flexible ways," Pandya said. 
Among other areas where BNPL is seeing high growth usage during the first two months of this year were home furnishing, up 38%, and apparel, which rose by 8%.
Adobe (ADBE) said that overall e-commerce shopping is likely to reflect more use on mobile devices, with mobile shopping expected to overtake desktop sales this year. Adobe (ADBE) said that evidence of this was seen during 2022's Christmas and holiday shopping season, where 51% of sales during Cyber Week came via smartphone for the first time, and that smartphones should drive the majority of online sales every month this year.
Along with its details on e-commerce analytics, Adobe (ADBE) also used its Digital Summit to unveil some of its new advancements in AI technology for editing photos and documents.