Layaway plans are here to stay?

I can speak with experience when I say that in the old days, layaway shopping was a very popular thing. Putting something on layaway meant that you could pick something that the store had in stock, place 10% down or something and then you could make payments on that particular item until it was paid and then home it went. It was a great purchase plan for people that didn’t have the cash to lay out for bigger items so layaway purchases were very popular in the 60s and the 70s especially around the holidays. I actually bought my first console TV set back in the 80s that way at and it was a very proud moment when we loaded it up but it was in the 80s that layaway purchases started getting phased out. With the ease of obtaining credit cards in the late 80s and 90s, stores chose to no longer carry the burden of facilitating the layaway purchase plans and started working more towards steering their customers to their own credit cards which gave the customers the flexibility of getting their merchandise immediately. As far as the store was concerned, they could recognize a sale immediately, promote over spending from the buyer and most importantly, make millions on interest that they charged the customers for using the credit card.

In the last couple of years, you started seeing a few stores offering layaway plans again because the economy has taken a big turn. With job losses and many other variables in the credit world, some people have had to think about a layaway plan if they wanted to purchase those bigger items so the major stores had to implement layaway plans back in to the stores if they wanted to stay above water.

Sears started accepting layaway purchases last year for the holidays and it worked out pretty well for them. Many shoppers welcomed the plan and in my opinion was part of the re-birth of Sears as far as their bottom line for sales. They figured that waiting for the money was better than not seeing it at all!

As you may already know, Sears has taken over and merged with K-Mart and has taken a more aggressive approach towards the layaway plan for the 2009 holidays. You can now go to the K-Mart website and purchase an item and place it on layaway. There is a small fee attached and there is a contract time amount that you have to meet but the simplicity of shopping from home is there and you don’t have to have the cash up front. Sears has a very similar plan and again, you can go online and start a layaway purchase for the holidays.

There are many other stores that have jumped on the band wagon with allowing a customer to place an item on layaway such as Toys-R-Us, Burlington Coat Factory, Marshalls, KB Toys, TJ Maxx and many more and I’m sure that you will see advertisements to that effect for this 2009 holiday season. It is not apparent as to who is going to offer this through an online process but you will defiantly see the layaway booths in the stores.

Feel free to comment as to who is offering layaway plans both in the stores and online!

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