What happened to layaways?

[rhonhod]

I did 2 layaway's this year at K Mart. 1 was for all the nieces and nephews and then 1 for my kids. I love it. My kids keep snooping around looking for signs of something. A bag from somewhere. Actually our K Mart had a darn good sale and I got 12 nieces and nephews all gifts and only spent $119.00. I know I"M CHEAP!!!!!

I did get a clearance shirt for my nephew it was marked 5 bucks when it rang up it was 99 cents.

 

[EthansMom]

It cost Walmart too much money. DH's walmart is on the smaller side compared to some when talking $ and they had to each year rent 20-30 trailers to hold all the stuff. They had to put them outside the store somewhere so the employees could get the items and then have them somewhat organized to get the stuff off. It took way too much time and $ paid to employees to keep it running. He has worked at about 8 different walmarts and all were run the same, just the others had more trailers full.

That's my understanding too. Add in the fact that people would request a price reduction any time their layaway item was on sale, which reduces the $$ Walmart might have made, the expense of storing the items, the cost of labor to store/retrieve items, and the headache the week before Christmas and it just wasn't worth it to continue offering layaway.

 

[englishteacha]

I only used layaway once. I bought DH a keyboard (piano...not computer!) and couldn't figure out how to sneak it in the house. I put it on layaway and close to Christmas I picked it up and took it to work and wrapped it. Then it came in when DH wasn't paying attention. It was very nice to have somewhere else to store the gift, and even though I had the money to buy it up front, it was nice to pay half, then the other half later. I can see why stores don't like to store my stuff, though! Right now I have a small mountain of bags in my living room with Christmas gifts in them. I just don't have a place to put them. I'll probably wrap them tomorrow and give them to folks at Thanksgiving just to get them out of my house!

 

[KigerKat]

I thought I heard on the news that some stores are bringing it back because of the credit crunch. ????

I had heard the same thing on the news. There are so many people out there that prefer to live without credit cards that have missed layaway, and now that so many people are having to give up their credit cards due to high rates they are wanting it back.

I personally think it is a great idea. Sure, the stores have to store it for you until it is paid off, but customers will buy more from you if they have have layaway as an option. Everyone hear has heard that Kmart's sales are up this year because they are offering layaway, so it has to be working.

It might be too late for Wal-Mart to offer it for this year, but I think they will change their minds about it before next Christmas!!