Monday, October 20, 2008

Layaway?


Last week Suze Orman commented on not buying what you CAN'T afford....if you can't pay cash don't buy it...and so on. Very smart, very sensible, whether you are in bad economic times or not. She also reflected on "the good old days" when credit cards didn't exist, so consumers bought only what they had the cash to buy. She also mentioned layaway. Do you all remember layaway? I do and I used it. When did it stop?

Which came first, retailers stopped offering layaway or I stopped using layaway? I had to think about why I stopped using it. My guess is kids. Taking advantage of shopping while the kids were with Wade or friends. Just buying it in the moment to keep gifts a surprise. Or because going to a store once a week to put a payment on the merchandise just didn't work. Who knows!

A few days after Suze talked about layaway, I see a commercial for Kmart, they are offering layaway for holiday gifts! Actually they never stopped, like Wal-mart and many others, but now they are advertising the offer. Such smart marketing especially for the times. Down side...you need a Kmart near you. We don't have one within flying distance of Forest Grove!

FYI, Walmart stopped offering layaway in 2006. That is just a fact, not a dig!
A few other online layaway sites:

2 comments:

ORSprueills said...

Did you ever use it?

ORSprueills said...

From an article I read, that is one of the reasons Wal-mart stopped, the real estate to store the items is worth more that the actual sale of the items.