Abercrombie app adds millennial-friendly Venmo payment option

Abercrombie & Fitch is hoping millennials and Generation Z shoppers like purchasing hoodies and jeans with their Venmo accounts as much as they like buying pizza.

Starting Tuesday, shoppers using the retailer’s namesake and Hollister apps will be able to select the popular payment platform as an option when checking out. The company’s mobile apps are its fastest-growing digital channel, making them key to a revival at the youth clothing store, which saw sales rise last fiscal year after four annual declines.

venmo on phone
The Ebay Inc. Venmo application (app) is arranged for a photograph on an Apple Inc. iPhone 5s in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Aug. 22, 2014. After downloading the Venmo mobile-payment app onto a smartphone, users can connect them to bank and credit-card accounts, and then link up with friends to send and receive money on-the-go. Venmo, based in New York, alone handled $314 million in mobile payments in the first quarter of this year, up 62 percent from the prior quarter. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Abercrombie joins a wave of retailers adding a Venmo option since the payments app opened its doors to merchants last year.

Venmo has been a hot trend among young people who carry less cash and prefer quick online payments. The person-to-person money-transferring app, owned by PayPal Holdings Inc., processed more than $46 billion dollars in total payment volume in the 12 months through June 30.

Bloomberg News
P-to-P payments Retailers Venmo
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