Wal-Mart to Stop Offering Layaway

Written by nickel - 6 Comments

This may be old news to some, but it was new to me… I was at Wal-Mart last night when I noticed a sign saying that they are phasing out layaway. If you’re not familiar with layaway, it refers to the ability of customers can ‘reserve’ a product at a store by making a deposit, paying it off over time, and then picking it up when the balance hits zero. I’m guessing this won’t have much impact on readers of this site, but Wal-Mart attributes the move to declining demand for their layaway service. While I wonder how true that really is, it wouldn’t be particularly surprising if the ready availability of credit cards has turned enticed customers who otherwise would have bought on layaway to buy now and pay later. Regardess of the cause, Wal-Mart is “easing the transition” by keeping their layaway service active through the holidays. In case you’re interested, you have until November 19th to put things on layaway, and everything has to be paid off by December 8th.

Published on November 2nd, 2006 - 6 Comments
Filed under: Miscellany
email this post - digg this - stumble it - save to del.icio.us

Did you find this article useful? If so, please sign up to receive e-mail updates:

Comments (scroll down to add your own):

Wal-Mart keeps their margins so razor thin, the carrying and admin costs probably outweighed the additional business they gained from layaway. I suspect you’re 100% correct about the effect easy availability of credit cards these days on the layaway program as well. Now people are just paying 18%APR (a generalization, but many Wal-Mart customers probably can’t qualify for the best rates) on their purchases, instead of o%.
Comment by Debt Free — Nov 2nd 2006 @ 10:39 am
I think it is a dumb move on their part. Most of the people who use layaway do it because they can’t afford to pay the full price all at once for expensive items. I think now that many people will chooose simply not to purchase an item at all since it can’t be put on layaway.
Comment by SkyeBlue — Nov 2nd 2006 @ 3:39 pm
Yeah, because nobody buys stuff they can’t afford to pay for right away.

Layaway was big when I was a kid and it’s how I bought my first Transformer (the evil gun guy)!
Comment by Herb — Nov 2nd 2006 @ 4:04 pm
Layaway is a lot less popular than when I was a kid. People are more savvy now. Lots of people were putting things on layaway and then when they finished paying it off they would ask for a credit if the item had since been marked down.
Comment by nightwing — Nov 5th 2006 @ 1:16 pm
JC Penney phased out layaway several years ago, I think it was in 2000, and at the time very few people were using it. I would guess that most people use a charge card or credit card, for the convenience of making payments at home rather than in person, the fact that you get your items right away, as well as the ubiquity of credit cards these days.

And as nightwing said, back then we did have a lot of people returning things (swimsuits, winter coats, etc.) at the end of Layaway (layaway was a 3 month term) to rebuy them on clearance for 1/4 the price.
Comment by Amy — Nov 5th 2006 @ 8:37 pm
i would like layaway back. i only shop there because there was layaway now that tere is no layaway i will not be shopping there any more.
Comment by CHRISTINE — Mar 27th 2007 @ 12:49 pm