An economic bright spot came to my attention this week when K-Mart aired commercials touting the return of "lay-away." CNN Headline News also ran a segment this morning. It hasn't been very long since department stores did away with it, and I can still remember being upset about it at the time.
The biggest reason thrown around for the demise of lay away was that it cost a whole bunch of money to "park" the merchandise on "expensive real estate" and to pay employees to "watch" it to make sure it didn't go anywhere.
Okay. Um...the real estate would have been there whether or not anyone parked stuff on it. And they wouldn't be paying anyone any more money to watch the stuff. I go into stores and see plenty of employees walking around doing ... practically nothing. So if they get called to the layaway department to help some mommy put her stuff on ice for a few weeks...that is a good thing!
The big reason layaway is back? Probably maxed out credit cards and slow personal cash flow. Maybe the habit will stick. Anything to get us away from the sinful habit of going into hock for non producing assets. Yay.
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