Layaway is a very simple transaction: you pick out an item, a store puts it aside, and you make payments on it until you’ve paid it off and you can bring it home. It was a dying retail tradition when tightening credit markets and a massive recession led stores, notably discount retailers Kmart and Walmart, to bring it back. This year, Kmart wants customers who may no longer have a local store to use layaway plans to buy holiday gifts.

The retailer is offering 8- or 12-week layaway plans, letting customers spread out their payments before Christmas. Standard layaway agreements require the customer to put money down: Kmart is instead pushing layaway with no money down, and allowing customers to “lease to own” pricey items like appliances and electronics, also with no money down. That option will be available up until November 29.

The new layaway policies don’t include “inadvertent” cancellations, pre-holiday confusion, and cancellations after items have already shipped, so we hope that everything is working smoothly over at Kmart layaway HQ and will for the rest of the year.

Santa’s Helper Kmart® Brings Back No Money Down Layaway; Introduces No Money Down Leasing [Press Release]

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