The Warehouse partners up with layby company PartPay

The Warehouse has been working hard to improve its online offering. Photo / File

The Warehouse has partnered with finance company PartPay to offer an online installment payment service - just in time for Christmas.

The trial partnership with the New Zealand-owned instalment payment company began last week and is available for those shopping online.

PartPay is only available to online customers, and enables users to get the goods shipped straight away and pay for them in instalments over six weeks.

Timothy Kasbe, chief information and digital officer of The Warehouse, said there was a growing trend towards its customers shopping online.

"We think this will be well-received by customers who can now have greater flexibility over managing payments, particularly around key calendar dates for families like Christmas and Back to School," Kasbe said.

He said The Warehouse had been working hard to improve its digital offering.

PartPay founder and director John O'Sullivan said he believed retail platforms that incorporated payment instalments would be adopted in the future.

"Traditionally consumers can turn to traditional forms of finance when they purchase but PartPay gives consumers another option to spread the cost which doesn't charge transaction fees or interest," O'Sullivan said.

"Retailers like The Warehouse Group are seeing the business and customer benefits and they're embracing the technology."

PartPay, Laybuy and Trade Me's After Pay are new entrants to the market this year.

Earlier this year Consumer New Zealand advised shoppers to be careful about using the services of layby payment companies which allow shoppers the option of receiving goods immediately and paying for them in instalments, interest-free, over a number of weeks.

Consumer New Zealand chief executive Sue Chetwin said shoppers needed to know their rights when using payment options marked as "layby".

She said such instalment payment services did not fall under layby laws or a consumer credit contract.

The Warehouse Group has posted a 73.9 per cent drop in annual net profit after tax after big one-off costs hit the business.

The retailer reported its non-adjusted net after-tax profit figure was $20.4 million in 2017 compared with $78.3m in 2016, down 73.9 per cent. Adjusted net profit after tax was $59.2m, down 7.7 per cent compared to $64.1m last year.

The NZX-listed business said it had big one-off costs in the year to July 30, 2017 with the sale of financial services and the cost of restructure.