Walmart Revives Layaway, Just in Time for Christmas

Other discounters have been eating Walmart's Christmas cookies

09/09/2011 | By Truman Lewis

| ConsumerAffairs.com | Shopping

Walmart is bringing back layaway … sort of. The big retailer axed layaway five years ago, saying most consumers preferred to use credit cards. But that was before the U.S. economy took a wrong turn and the lower-income families who are Walmart's core consumers began ratcheting back their spending.

So now, Walmart says it is reviving layaway, but only for the holiday season and only for electronics and toys, the most popular holiday gift categories.

Walmart, which has been losing customers to dollar stores and other discount outlets, is also trying to make some calendar adjustments, in effect jump-starting the holiday shopping season. It will begin stocking Christmas items in September, a month earlier than usual, hoping to cajole shoppers into the holiday-buying spirit.

A Walmart spokeswoman has more details about the program in this video.

Whether Walmart extends the program beyond the holidays remains to be seen. Many of its competitors have been offering layaway programs of varying complexity in recent years. Kmart last year gave customers 12 weeks to pay for layaway purchases and Toys R Us began offering layaway during the 2009 holiday season. It has expanded the program since then.

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Trenton Little (Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:22:52 +0000): cant wait for this....

Terra Biggin (Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:30:05 +0000): I knew you would be excited

Carla Scruggs-Dunner (Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:49:50 +0000): October 17th! That's a good look!

Tammy Conrad (Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:05:49 +0000): Yay!

DeAnna Ellis (Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:45:10 +0000): It's overdue. People are struggling!

Tammy Diane Brown Miller (Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:46:19 +0000): yeah!

Sammy Mcnabb (Sat, 10 Sep 2011 00:22:55 +0000): its about time for them to

Tammy Diane Brown Miller (Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:48:46 +0000): They need to do this all year long like they use to. This would help for birthdays, school supplies and clothing and other holidays, but they need to put more than just electronics and toys. I have 8 kids and I buy clothes and layaway would mean buying alot more. Some people don't have a lot of hiding room either :)

Missy Penick (Sat, 10 Sep 2011 01:27:06 +0000): I wrote Walmart about two years ago suggesting they reinstate their layaway! The wrote back telling me they were doing just fine without it thank you very much and they had no plans on doing so. I stopped shopping at their stores and started doing all my shopping at stores who did have layaway whether I wanted to layaway or not! My feeling was they were being very short sighted at the least and I would rather spend my money where they valued me and kept my needs(and many others like me) in mind. I haven't regretted my decision.

David Lewis (Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:14:20 +0000): It is about time. Hopefully our local Wal mart in Joplin will be ready after the devastating tornado. Support our recovery www.bracelets4joplin.com.

Tammy Sweeney (Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:56:24 +0000): They need to bring it all back....all they want is the money from the big items...never mind the people that have other needs like clothes and other things...to me this is just greed on their part.

Melissa Lockhart (Sun, 06 Nov 2011 03:04:09 +0000): I think its really crap that I went to a local wal mart for an x box that was in the ad today, they did not have anymore so we called to other wal-marts then finally we called the washington store and they said they had the x box 4 gb for 299.99 and you get a 50 dollar gift card that is an awesome deal and she was going to hold it for us so we drove 40 min to pick this up at night. we get to the wal-mart and the girl says they do not have the x box that is in the ad, so we have the manager come up and he is willing to help us out and give 50 dollars off the x box that is 399.99 and then also we get the 50.00 gift card, then come to find out you can not pay the layaway at any wal-mart you have to pay it at the one you do the layaway at so I would have to drive 40 min to just make a payment have they seen gas prices I cant afford that, also the manager was even going to give us 20.00 for driving there because they messed up which is nice but that whole layaway shit is a bunch of bs and I think you should be able to make a payment where ever you can, not a very happy cunstomer they lost a sale I was going to get an x box and a tv for my son now who knows I'm just pretty mad.