Klarna enters 'keep it longer' arena with focus on most durable brands

With Earth Day looming, brands, retailers and others are laser-focused on eco initiatives and for instalment payments giant Klarna that means linking with Reddit to unveil the most popular ‘Buy It For Life’ (BIFL) items of 2023.

Based on consumer insights from Reddit’s BIFL community, it has unveiled a list that “highlights durable and quality-made products that are made to last… to inspire shoppers to buy items that last longer”. 

It came up with the list by using ChatGPT and manual analysis. Klarna scanned r/BuyItForLife for the most frequently mentioned products in 2022 and filtered the results by positive and neutral sentiment, resulting in The 2023 BIFL List. 

It includes shoes from Red Wing, a water bottle from Klean Kanteen and a backpack from JanSport, according to the online community that has over 1.4 million subscribers on Reddit. 

Other items induce a Wahl hair clipper, Filson bag, Birkenstock and Teva sandals, and Dr Martens boots

The company said that as part of its commitment “to help consumers shop smarter, the ambition is to update the BIFL list on an annual basis”.

It adds to a number of eco initiatives from the business in recent periods such as the roll out of ‘Conscious’ and ‘Shop Circular’ collections in the Klarna app, and the launch of a search and comparison tool and resell feature introduced to help consumers shop more consciously.

There are also Conscious badges in the Klarna App highlighting electronics brands’ environmental achievements, and major upgrades to the CO2e tracker in the app that now provides shoppers worldwide with emissions data at a product level for more than 70 million items in each step of the product’s lifecycle.