NEW YORK — After seeing high customer demand for layaway during last year’s winter holiday season, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is expanding the interest-free pay-over-time program for Christmas.
The new program will last a month longer than last year’s and will include more items than the toys and electronics featured last year.
The world’s largest retailer says its mostly lower-income shoppers are still having a hard time stretching their dollars to the next paycheck. A little more than three years into the economic recovery, shoppers, particularly in the low-income bracket, remain particularly hard hit by unemployment and other financial worries.
The return of layaway is also occurring after the discounter, based in Bentonville, Ark., saw its sales momentum slow at its namesake U.S. business, according to its latest quarterly results, though business has rebounded from a more than two-year slump.
The announcement, made Monday, also presages what’s expected to be another intensely competitive holiday shopping season where merchants will do whatever it takes to lure shoppers into stores.
