eLayaway: a responsible alternative to credit cards
I am one of the many people who are better at “paying back” than “saving up” for bigger ticket purchases. That’s obviously not a good reason to use credit cards (or any other form of debt), but that’s my personality.
So what is a spender to do when faced with this dilemma? Anyone remember layaway?
For those who don’t, layaway was a service that many stores used to offer (but most have discontinued, thanks to the popularity of credit cards). Instead of buying something now and paying for it later (the credit card model), layaway let you pay for something over time for a small, fixed fee (if there was one), and have the product stored for you until you’d paid for it. Maybe not as fun as instant gratification, but much more responsible and frankly, more satisfying in the long run.
Well, as it turns out, the fabulous Internet has enabled layaway to make a comeback. Enter eLayaway, the online service that gives you the old layaway benefits with modern technology. There are some smart features, like auto draft from a checking account to make it easy to stay on top of it, and automatic shipping when the item is paid for.
The only downside is that there aren’t very many participating merchants at the moment. I expect this is a short-term problem, because they’ve made their pricing very attractive to merchants (much cheaper than credit card processing if there’s any sales volume at all) and merchants will be able to use this service to differentiate themselves and show they are thinking of their customers’ best interests.
Popularity: 41% [?]
Actually this isn’t a bad idea. I know so many people with bad credit, who can’t even get a credit card anymore that something like this would really work. Hopefully it will catch on to vendors.
That is really neat. Thanks for the link.
that actually sounds very interesting, im surprised i had never thought of something like that in the past. it could work granted more merchants get involved, and could possibly be a very good anti-debt weapon.
I have been around e-commerce for over 10 years now and I would caution anyone that uses this kind of system to be darn sure of who you are giving money to and how long they have been in business. There are countless numbers of internet merchants that put up a website today only to see it disappear in 2,3,6 months later. I would definitely not allow my money to be “out there” for more than 60 days.