Wasn’t the whole point of layaway to keep the physical item from being purchased by another customer until you could pay it off? How many items today completely sell out?
Elder millennial, and I’ve never fully understood layaway.
Yeah, but that was back in the day when if you wanted some things they could take weeks or more than a month to have it ordered and shipped to you. It was all snail mail and next day prime delivery didn’t exist for the average person. Logistics and shipping were a lot slower. So if you paid layaway for a month you could get the double benefit of payments and not needing to wait for an order to come in. IOW you could save up for a month and then order and get your item a month after that, or “claim” an item now and make the payments.
I’m Gen Z, I did a layaway on the 2 bikes (my ebike and my Kona Dew+) I’ve bought because I knew I would have enough money to fully pay for them soon, but I didn’t want to risk those particular models selling out, and the bike shop really only brings in a few of each model due to their size.
People will never go back to not getting the thing up front plus then the store has to warehouse all of that stuff she the costs associated with staff looking after and organizing it, in a time when every place is slashing staff this will never do
I remember layaway fairly well. The great thing was that there was a small fee at worst, no interest charged.
It really needs to come back. It’s far better than putting someone in interest laden debt. But debt is profitable.
Wasn’t the whole point of layaway to keep the physical item from being purchased by another customer until you could pay it off? How many items today completely sell out?
Elder millennial, and I’ve never fully understood layaway.
Yeah, but that was back in the day when if you wanted some things they could take weeks or more than a month to have it ordered and shipped to you. It was all snail mail and next day prime delivery didn’t exist for the average person. Logistics and shipping were a lot slower. So if you paid layaway for a month you could get the double benefit of payments and not needing to wait for an order to come in. IOW you could save up for a month and then order and get your item a month after that, or “claim” an item now and make the payments.
Makes a lot of sense, thanks.
I’m Gen Z, I did a layaway on the 2 bikes (my ebike and my Kona Dew+) I’ve bought because I knew I would have enough money to fully pay for them soon, but I didn’t want to risk those particular models selling out, and the bike shop really only brings in a few of each model due to their size.
People will never go back to not getting the thing up front plus then the store has to warehouse all of that stuff she the costs associated with staff looking after and organizing it, in a time when every place is slashing staff this will never do