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Jun 20, 2023 869

Klarna Unveils Highly-Anticipated Suite of Innovations and New Functionalities

#Finance

"Global retail bank, payments and shopping service Klarna is showcasing a suite of new innovations, including a new in-app personalised shopping feed alongside smart shopping features to help consumers buy and resell items.

The updates also incorporate new tools for retailers and creators to help them engage with their audiences in more effective ways. Together, these new products continue to shape the future of shopping, making it more personal, convenient and enjoyable while cementing the company as a global shopping destination for 150 million consumers and a growth engine for its 500,000 retailers; in line with its Spotlight Spring product launch."

A new AI-powered shopping feed

The Klarna app’s new discovery shopping feed, which is powered by the company’s in-house developed AI capability, exposes consumers to personalised product recommendations to help them find and shop items most relevant to them. The feed updates products and deals in real time and becomes increasingly tailored as it learns more about the user’s preferences. This will work to complement Klarna’s recently launched search and compare tool that lets consumers find the right product at the best price, further evolving the app to become a starting point for every purchase. In addition to its own AI initiatives, Klarna has recently worked with OpenAI to bring curated product recommendations to users who ask ChatGPT for shopping advice and inspiration, via its plugin. Klarna is currently the only European fintech company to partner with ChatGPT to use its protocol to build an integrated plugin and utilise the power of AI to create an experience for consumers to answer their shopping needs. Further, the Klarna app has been redesigned to make shopping and managing finances easier. Divided into five intuitive tabs: Shop, Purchases, In-Store, Budget and You, it now streamlines and combines the most intelligent tools, so consumers can easily discover new items at the best price while retaining a full overview of their spending.

Ask Klarna, a personal shopper in every pocket

According to a recent Klarna survey, 78 per cent of consumers would like a service where they can speak with product experts to get more information about items when shopping online. For this, the company is introducing Ask Klarna, a free personal shopper service that provides consumers with on-demand access to shopping experts, via chat or video call in the Klarna app and website. Klarna’s team will help consumers find products across thousands of brands, stores and products in the luxury sector, and soon expand to more verticals. With this feature, Klarna sets a new standard for online shopping, empowering consumers to make informed purchases with advice from trusted experts.

Creating a smooth resell experience

The trend of buying and selling secondhand is growing as consumers seek eco-friendly options and budget-friendly solutions. According to the same aforementioned survey, over one-third of consumers are more likely to resell an item now compared to one year ago. The new resell feature in the Klarna app speeds up the process of creating listings on secondhand marketplaces by pre-filling product details and images. To resell a past Klarna purchase, consumers tap ‘resell’ on an item from their order history to be automatically taken to a participating re-commerce platform. This reduces the time and energy needed to list items for sale, so consumers do good by their wallets and the environment. Today the feature is available in Sweden, together with Tradera, the largest resell platform in the Nordic region and is set to go live with more partners across the world soon.

Klarna Ads Manager

As Klarna continues to provide a superior experience for consumers across the shopping journey, it simultaneously creates more opportunities for retailers to connect with this high-intent shopper audience. Adding to its existing range of marketing and ad solutions, Klarna is now introducing Ads Manager, a self-service platform for retailers. Ads Manager harnesses Klarna’s first-party data so retailers can reach the right shopper at the right time, while ensuring consumers enjoy a more relevant shopping experience. The platform offers brands a more efficient way to advertise, from ad creation and audience targeting to in-platform reporting for campaign optimisation. Marketing revenue was up 131 per cent in 2022 with more retailers choosing to partner with Klarna for these services. With this new addition, the company is well-poised to be a major player in the retail media network space. Thanks to its position at the intersection of shoppers and retailers, Klarna creates a value exchange that drives results for retailers while continually enhancing the consumer experience.

Creator Shops, a new must-visit shopping destination

While a growing number of consumers are using social media as their primary source of shopping inspiration, finding products is challenging. Content is dispersed across channels and the journey from browsing to buying is unpredictable. With Creator Shops, Klarna gives its growing creator network the ability to launch their own storefronts on the company’s website and the tools to power a consistent shopping experience. Using Klarna’s recently launched Creator Platform, creators can recommend products from thousands of brands, share shoppable video and photo content, and share their personal shop across their social channels. This allows shoppers to find and shop their favourite creators’ product recommendations in one place. Further, by being able to include links to every item, creators can increase their ability to earn revenue from a single post on any social media platform, by enabling their followers to click through to their shop and buy. Soon creators will be able to share this content with millions of shoppers in the Klarna app for extended reach.

‘A new world of opportunities’

Content creator, Lydia Tomlinson, describes the arrival of the Klarna Creator Platform as “a new world of opportunities when it comes to affiliate content.” “The transparency between what I link and what the brand can see has helped me establish new relationships with brands that I have loved and shopped at for years,” continues Tomlinson. “With my new Creator Shop, I have the perfect place to showcase everything I’m wearing, using and loving. Now my followers can easily find and shop my latest looks all in one place, saving them the hassle of wondering where to buy.”

A starting point for every purchase

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, comments: “Over the last 18 years, we’ve transformed into a global shopping destination with smart tools for consumers around the world. “Our new AI-powered discovery shopping feed is the next evolution of the Klarna app becoming the starting point for every purchase. This builds on a ton of initiatives we’re working on in the AI space, to provide a greater level of personalisation to consumers that were once thought impossible. “The new tools we’re launching today will create richer, more enjoyable experiences for everyone along the shopping journey and create tremendous opportunities for retailers to grow their business,” he concludes.