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Time's up

Big-box retailer Wal-Mart eliminates layaway, ending a program that was relied upon by many folks who measure their spending with particular care.

By RODNEY THRASH
Published October 10, 2006

[Times photos: Bob Croslin]

Katherine Davis of St. Petersburg, center, is a longtime Wal-Mart shopper and layaway user. She can't remember a time when she hasn't taken the opportunity to buy over time. She is pictured with her mother, Wanda Jenkins, as well as her children, from left, Aisja Payne, 8, Jakiyah Turner, 3, Cedric Davis, 12, and Zahmaria Penix, 6.

ST. PETERSBURG -- The letter is seven paragraphs, single-spaced.

At the Wal-Mart Supercenter on 34th Street S, copies are everywhere. Next to cash registers. Taped to counters.

The note, though generic, begins with a most personal greeting.

Dear Layaway Customers:

These are the people who supported Wal-Mart when it was a store for the poor. No 24-hour supercenters. No symbol on the New York Stock Exchange. Just Wal-Mart.

In the letter, Wal-Mart says it values those customers, that it appreciates their business. But after 44 years, it must discontinue layaway, the pay-over-time program that made purchasing possible for the cash-strapped.

Layaway taught generations of kids discipline, how to save for big-ticket toys and transistor radios. It helped adults furnish first apartments.

Demand is shrinking, the company says. Expenses are climbing.

Wal-Mart will accept layaway orders until Nov. 19 - five days before parents and grandparents usually line up outside malls and stores in the wee hours of the morning for the official start of the holiday shopping season.

* * *

In the back, past the row of women's slippers and seasonal accessories, the lines in the layaway department are indeed small. One, maybe two people pass through every half-hour. Most times, they cut a left toward the bathroom. This is what has become of the layaway department.

At the supercenter on U.S. 19, Dorothy Hanshaw, 22, of Largo, is the only one in line. She has a shopping cart filled to the brim. Her 17-month-old son is in the children's seat.

"That's the only way I can buy for the family," said the single mother of four.

Down the road, at the 34th Street S store, Wanda Jenkins pulls up to the layaway counter. She's still in her peach scrubs, her work uniform. She's a nurse at a St. Petersburg retirement center.

"I got my first computer by putting it on layaway," said the 53-year-old grandmother, who was making a payment on winter clothes for her grandchilden.

Then there's Katherine Davis, another single mom and Jenkins' daughter. She can't think of a time in her adult life when she could have gone without the layaway program. "That's constant," said Davis, of St. Petersburg. "There's no way I would have been able to just pay it all off."

They have shopped at Wal-Mart since who knows when.

They aren't poor, but they aren't wealthy, either.

Like Davis, many layaway customers don't qualify for credit. Some fear it.

Layaway has helped them through birthdays, Christmases and first days of school.

They've been able to buy big-ticket items - computers, TVs, DVD players - that today seem more necessity than luxury.

More often than not, the items are more basic: clothes, bedding, towels.

They learned secondhand that Wal-Mart was eliminating layaway. On the way to work. On morning radio shows. Word-of-mouth.

Their reactions were the same. Surprised. Disappointed. Betrayed.

* * *

Jenkins has just returned home after a Thursday afternoon run to the Wal-Mart Supercenter on 34th Street S.

It's a mile from her one-story brick frame house. It wasn't always so convenient. For years, a decade at least, she drove nearly 10 miles to the one in Pinellas Park. Sometimes, she went to the store near Tyrone Square Mall.

In January 2005, when the 24-hour supercenter opened, she was elated. For the first time, she could grocery shop, fill her prescription and have her oil changed without leaving her neighborhood.

"Seems like we waited forever," says Jenkins, sitting on the sofa that overlooks her front porch. "And less than two years after they open, they are now going to do away with layaway.

"Not that I'll stop going, but not as much."

As she talks, screams come from the back of the house.

"Stop!

"It's probably my youngest," Davis says. She and her four children live with Jenkins. There's Cedric Davis, 12; Aisja Payne, 8; Zahmaria Penix, 6; and Jakiyah Turner, the screamer.

Davis is 29 and, at the moment, unemployed. Until two months ago, she worked for a health care company. She gets child support, which helps but only goes so far.

A few minutes later, a little girl emerges from the hallway. It's Jakiyah. With one hand, she fiddles with her hair.

"Grandma, they are playing," the girl says in that soft voice only a 3-year-old trying to squirm her way out of trouble can make.

"Tell them to stop playing," Jenkins says.

For a little while, there is silence. It doesn't last.

"Ahhhhh!"

Jenkins rises from the sofa and heads to the back room where the children are. The house falls quiet.

Jenkins returns to the living room. She and Davis pick up where they left off: layaway.

"They're cutting out the little people," Davis says. "Wal-Mart is not looking at the bigger picture."

* * *

Wal-Mart says it is.

"Consumers have several payment plan options that were not available when layaway first started," says company spokeswoman Marisa Bluestone.

There are online shopping, gift cards, low-risk credit cards - all of which have made layaway obsolete.

Wal-Mart is not the first company to discontinue layaway in recent years, but it is the largest. Circuit City did so two years ago. Neither Target nor Best Buy offer the service.

Bluestone says Wal-Mart has not abandoned the demographic that made it the retail giant it is. It is offering current credit card holders zero interest for the first six to 12 months. People who apply for a new line of credit and purchase $100 on the card the same day will receive $20 cash.

For people like Davis, who don't qualify for credit, "that's not an option."

"We recognize that," Bluestone says, "which is why we're working on new options to make those programs even more accessible."

* * *

The letter has no signature, just this tagline:

Thank you for loyalty as we phase out layaway.

For the people who depended on layaway to get through hard times, those words seem hollow, insincere.

Petitions are circulating on the Internet pleading for the company to change the policy.

"If we didn't shop there," Davis said, "they wouldn't be where they're at."

Customers have until Dec. 8 to pick up any items still on layaway.

After that, they'll have to find somewhere else to shop, maybe Kmart.

"They still have a layaway plan," Jenkins said.

Rodney Thrash can be reached at 727 893-8352 or rthrash@sptimes.com.

Wal-Mart's letter to customers

Dear Layaway Customers:

We value you as a loyal Wal-Mart customer and appreciate your business over the years when utilizing our layaway service! We are announcing the decision to phase out layaway this Christmas season.

Demand for layaway has declined steadily as our customers have turned to other options, such as online shopping, gift cards and no-cost credit alternatives.

To assist you during this transition, we are offering one last opportunity to use layaway service this Christmas season.

You will have until November 19, 2006 to place items in layaway and you will have until December 8, 2006 to pick up all items in layaway.

In addition, we are also introducing a $20 Cash back offer at the register to customers when you apply for a new Discover or Wal-Mart Credit card and purchase $100 or more on your new card that day!

You can also take advantage of zero interest offers for 6 and 12 months for current Wal-Mart Credit cardholders.

Thank you for loyalty as we phase out layaway.

[Last modified October 10, 2006, 06:38:59]